


Hostage

by hypertensivehitachiins



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - War, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 17:11:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1193127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypertensivehitachiins/pseuds/hypertensivehitachiins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyouya is the third son, but that's not his only handicap. He almost despairs in proving himself on par with his brothers, but then his father gives him a job: to take care of a very special guest - or shall we say a very special hostage? [Feudal Era AU] [HIATUS]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Very Special Guest

**Author's Note:**

> \- Glasses were introduced in Japan sometime during the Sengoku era by European traders. For the purposes of this story, glasses are not yet commonly available, nor is everyone aware of the existence of such a thing.
> 
> \- I cut my teeth in writing Kyouya in Crash, but my experience with him does not come close to my experience with the Hitachiins. Therefore, I welcome any feedback.
> 
> \- This story does not strive for historical accuracy. I do my best, but the aim is to create a fantasy loosely based on the Feudal era in Japan.

No one ever noticed Kyouya. Which might have been just as well, because that would have made it easier to observe things - if not for one problem. From the time he was old enough to walk, his world had been getting smaller and smaller. By the time he was nearly waist-high, he could not see much farther than his outstretched arm, and had the misfortune of having let people know as much.

And that was how it happened. Unlike other boys his age, it was deemed that it would be useless to teach him archery, or javelin throwing, or swordplay, or anything but the most elementary hand-to-hand combat. He never even got to ride a proper horse - that is, one that was trained for battle. And that made sense. No one with his condition would last a minute on the battlefield, and although there were two older sons, it would not do to waste a third on an end that would be futile. For a while, they thought of sending Kyouya off to become a monk, away from a world at war, but his mother had just fallen ill, and begged for him to stay for he had always been her secret favorite.

For that reason, Kyouya had reached the age of fourteen and was neither a woman nor a man, living in a floating world between the outer and the inner courtyars. The women's quarters, or the inner yard, was where he spent his time when the men were off on campaigns, tending what he liked to call "his flock" of bedridden mother, sister Fuyumi, "artist"-in-residence Mitsouko Haninozuka and her pet rabbit Usa-chan, and numerous other ladies in waiting. An extended visit from Kyouya always meant much glee in the women's wing, for they deemed him unparalleled in reading poetry, playing the koto, or simply listening to their worries when the occasion called for it.

In the men's quarters, or the outer yard, he did little mixing with the other samurai, instead spending his mornings under the tutelage of the head of accounts, for after his future as a scholar fell through he discovered he had a head for numbers. And that was just as well, because it almost soothing to sit by a window in the fresh air and flick the abacus beads with a rhythmic click, and enter numbers into a large record book. The work was largely technical, but even so he had found many ways to cut corners over the years, and the accounts manager was always very impressed and gave him tasks that were increasingly complicated. But he was also never banned from listening to the other men's stories over meals - and glorious and awesome stories they were, though Kyouya suspected that a good half of the awesomeness and glory was a product of voraciously consumed sake.

Of course, he went about talking to many other people, too - the ones who lived outside the main house gates. Kyouya always talked to everyone, whether he admired or despised them, because one never knew who might prove useful. Indeed, he had decided that if his eyes could not see, his tongue and ears would have to do double duty. And so he talked to the cooks, and to the smiths, to the horse grooms and the sake brewers and the basket weavers. He even talked, quite often, with an equally observant page boy named Haruhi, who was actually a girl and in his debt for covering up when she broke a priceless vase.

And life might have been good for Kyouya Ootori, if as the years went by he did not come to realize that his father barely spoke to him.

He spoke to his brothers plenty, and at first he thought it was because they were a good ten years older. But then he realized that the things they talked about made very little sense and involved words he did not understand, and to that end, he began reading tactical books by famous generals, hoping he might find aught to contribute. But when his second-oldest brother Akito found him at the task, he had laughed at him.

"A man who has never seen the battlefield has no business directing armies," he had said. "I would stick with counting pennies, little brother. One day, who knows, you might just count them all."

And from that day day a black resentment began to grow in Kyouya. The books he had read by the ancients had always taught him that knowledge, not might, was power, and that every skill - even that of a thief - had the potential to save everything under the right circumstances. And so, though he knew he was lacking he had always tried to believe that understanding things from the inside would help him gain the upper hand in the end. But he had never seen any proof for his beliefs, and Akito had only made plain what Kyouya already suspected. Times had changed, and in a world where violence was always at the gates and men did not know what would get them first - the hunger, the cold, or the marauding bands of samurai - the only way to fight fire was with fire, and there was only one way men could end up on top.

Thus, given the circumstances, when his father called him in to speak to him alone, nothing could have prepared Kyouya for his question.

"Kyouya, what do you want to do in this life?" the patriarch had asked. The silence hung thick under the rafters, and Kyouya sat - as custom demanded - too far away from his father to see his face.

What did he, indeed? And why did it matter? There was no way he could step outside his frame, not the least because his frame ended an arm's length away, and even going out and seeking death would be more foolish than glorious.

His father waited, and Kyouya decided, at length, to tell the truth, for there seemed to be no better alternative.

"I want to be a military leader like you," Kyouya said. "But I don't think that's possible. Akito said a man who has never seen the battlefield has no business even sitting on a war council."

"Did he?" said Ootori senior, shifting with a light creak of the tatami mats. "That is not necessarily true, you know. All good leaders are expert manipulators, and have a keen understanding of resources, mechanics, and their fellow man."

He paused, reaching over to something by his side, and Kyouya's heart suddenly beat so furiously he saw the surface of his robe twitch.

"You have a limitation," his father went on, "But that does not absolve you from my expectations. In fact, in some ways I expect even more from you."

Kyouya looked down at his knees. He could not believe what he was hearing. Across the way, his father's blurry form looked like a large, black mountain with steep sides.

"We just negotiated a cease-fire with a neighboring clan," the patriarch continued, shifting back into his original position with a rustle of mats. "Not peace or alliance - just a non-aggression pact. Part of the agreement was their daughter should come here and be kept for security. I thought, as a trial, you might try your hand at looking after her. So she remains happy and does not try to run off, or feed them information about us, or anything equally stupid. If you can do that, I will offer you a seat on my council."

The elder Ootori paused, the mats creaking again as he shifted.

"Any questions?"

"Which clan?"

"The Hitachiins."

"Oh. I was not aware they had a daughter. I was told they had two sons."

Yuzuha Hitachiin, the matriarch of the Hitachiin clan, was known for her battlefield exploits in her youth, and was still a formidable general who headed her husband's war council. The head of the clan had captured her in battle and married her so he could have a brave son, and the Hitachiin twins did not disappoint him. Though they were barely fourteen, the Ootori banner men who met them claimed they were already a force to be reckoned with, and knew how to wield two swords apiece simultaneously.

"So we all thought," the Ootori patriarch replied. "But it seems one is actually a daughter who looks exactly like her brother and fights by his side."

"Ah."

"Takes after her mother, I suppose. Similar fox spirit." The elder Ootori cleared his throat into what looked like his fist. The light streamed from the window in thick, nearly opaque flows. "At any rate, it is best to keep one's friends close and one's enemies closer."

"I will not disappoint you, my lord." Kyouya gave a deep bow, pressing his forehead to the floor.

"Remember, she is not a bride, nor is she a prisoner." The patriarch sniffed what might have been a laugh, and the next time he spoke there was a hint of smile in his voice. "She is, if you will, a guest - and you are the host. So she is the one you must strive not to disappoint."


	2. Over the River and Through the Woods

"They can't do this!" Hikaru was raging around the room, throwing whatever he could get his hands on against the thin paper walls. "They can't take you away -"

"Hikaru, I'm sure it's only for a while. I'll be back in no time."

Kaoru reached for a robe her brother had flung, and pulled it toward the trunk she was packing. She had dismissed the lady in waiting an hour ago, and thus far packing and saying goodbye to Hikaru had proved serendipitously instrumental in helping keep her mind off her feelings.

"And yes, they can," she added. "Unfortunately, they can." She looked down, concentrating on making the seams crisp - for she had a long journey ahead of her - and tried extra hard to make her voice kind. "You should be happy that mother got them to agree to the arrangement that they did. A woman is not only less important, she is also more likely to be kept safe and out of sight. There's that much less of a chance that someone will try to pick a fight with me."

"And that much more of a chance someone will try to go after your virtue."

"In which case," Kaoru gave a sterile chuckle, patting down the cloth. "They'll meet with far more skill with a sword than they bargained for."

Hikaru was like that. After fourteen years, Kaoru knew all too well that her brother was like an oil fire - the surest way to put him out was to wait for him to burn out. Of course, she loved her twin more than life itself. On that point there could be no question. Since the day they were born, they had been together, and if ever they met with any danger, Kaoru was never afraid as long as Hikaru was by her side. But Hikaru was also the wilder one, and oft disparaged for his irreverence, and a part of Kaoru could not help but agree with the general sentiment. She herself could hardly bear the thought of parting, but she stowed those thoughts away like so many kimono in her trunk - for what was the use? Even at their tender age, the twins had had many brushes with death, and both had killed their first man by the time they were eleven. No one was the master of his own fate, and obedience and obedience alone was way to afford at least some semblance of safety. Kaoru did not like it, but it did not matter. If what it took to keep the peace was leaving everything she knew behind, she would sacrifice herself gladly.

The dews quivered on the branches outside the open window, for it was a warm spring night, and Hikaru had sunk to his knees on the floor, piles of clothing on either side. He was still wearing his light training armor from a few hours ago, when he had thought, in vain, that sparring would take the edge off.

"You can stay here tonight," said Kaoru, casting a glance at him, and lowering herself to her knees opposite her brother. Hikaru looked up, and his eyes were filled with tears, his forearms shaking atop his knees and his knuckles growing white.

"You mean that, Kaoru?"

"Yes, of course."

Her eyes were soft - the color of warm, molten amber-sap by the light of the lamp. She wore a red woman's kimono, in keeping with her new role, and her skin was a dewy gold against it. A long tail of auburn hair streamed forward over her breast. Most days, she was his brother, treated on par with the men and indistinguishable from him when she was in armor. Some of the newer bannermen did not even know she was a girl. The two of them did all the things that men did together when they were on scouting patrol with their uncles, learning to command a group of men. They built campfires under the stars, fell asleep side by side, rode side by side, had each other's back, and Kaoru always pulled her weight in everything from keeping watch to shooting down brigands with the best of them. That was one of the many things he loved about her. She never demanded to be treated any differently because of what she was, never claimed she could not do something because she was a woman. At the same time, she never had a chip on her shoulder, either, and never put on airs, and yet she was still so, so beautiful. It might have been the number of times they went to sleep wondering if they'd wake up strung up by the feet from a nearby tree, or the fact that they had been perfect sparring partners since they could walk, but Hikaru's feelings for his sister far surpassed the bonds of family.

"I... I just hate the thought of anyone else having you," he whispered.

Kaoru smiled. "But, Hikaru, it's not as if I'm getting married - yet."

If Hikaru looked shaken before, the word married had all the effect of a knife stabbed and twisted into his chest.

"Oh, Hikaru, I'm -" Kaoru reached out to put a hand over his, but he pulled away, covering his eyes instead.

She watched him wheeze barely audibly for a few moments, his mouth twisting into a grotesque semblance of a drama mask.

"Hikaru, please, I said I'm not getting married."

"No, I know" - the older twin sobbed. It had not taken him long to give in: frank tears were sliding down his cheeks, and he made vain attempts to hide them by pressing his palm over his face and biting down on his wrist. "It's just that I thought that when you got married, it'd be to someone we adopted into our own clan. That way, you could stay here, and be -"

\- And be mine.

Kaoru reached forward and gently peeled his hand away, taking the other one by the wrist. Hikaru squeezed his eyes shut and angled his face stubbornly down, the muscles of his forehead contorting into ridges.

"Don't cry." She smiled, hunching down such that her face would be the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes. "I'm sure they'll let me write. And I'm sure they'll let you visit after a while, when things settle down."

A tear swelled in the corner of Hikaru's eye, growing steadily before breaking with the line of lashes and rushing to join its fellows on his cheek.

"Come on," Kaoru squeezed his hands. "It's late. Let's unroll the futon."

She pressed his hands again and pulled herself to her feet. Hikaru opened his eyes and slumped back onto the pile of clothes. Outside, the sky had grown black, and the shadows from the lamp danced on the walls, sending the outline of Kaoru's form willowing across the floor. Putting on a dress was not exactly enough to turn her into a woman: most women walked with small, mincing steps, wrapped tightly into their robes as they were, but Kaoru walked as if she still carried a katana at her side, and as if her steps were merely a buildup to a wide sweep of the sword through the air. She had not wrapped her robe as tightly around her as she could have, and with only the sash to cinch it in the middle Hikaru saw a little more leg than might have been proper, which sent his heart racing.

Kaoru stopped and drew aside the door to the closet. She pulled down one of the rolled-up mattresses, and unfurled it across the floor with a smooth, deft motion. She then pulled down another and did the same, pausing to look up at Hikaru with a small once she was done.

The older twin rocked himself to a kneeling position, and shuffled toward her on his knees. Kaoru smiled indulgently, and slipped her outer robe down her shoulders, revealing an under-robe in cream-colored silk. She was starting to get her woman's body, but seemed largely unaware of it. Still, her new curves fit her well, and Hikaru felt the pit of his stomach flutter again as the heavy silk pulled the collar of the under-layer to the side, revealing the delicate bow of a collarbone.

He was her brother, and, along with their father and perhaps her future husband, he was one of the few people she was allowed to receive in her private quarters. Indeed, since he was her brother, no one batted an eye even if he stayed the night, given how inseparable the twins were otherwise. As a result, he would stay the night quite frequently, even after he had ceased to be a child and moved into the men's quarters.

Hikaru crawled under the covers and Kaoru snuffed out the flame and did the same. They stretched their hands across the space between them, lacing their fingers together. Back when they were little, they would share the same futon, and wrap their arms around each other, but now that they had grown holding hands was Hikaru allowed himself. He was still uncertain whether he saw Kaoru as a woman or a man - as a brother-in-arms or a little sister in need of protection. More than that, even though Kaoru was slated to become a samurai, and even though samurai often had intimate relations - something about the experiences of battle forging bonds more tight than a man could have with any woman - he still hesitated, for even in a land where marriages between half-siblings were common, virginity was unnamed and unrecorded, and the noble classes routinely had many lovers, both male and female, the two of them still went beyond all moral and legal allowances. And at the end of the day, the cloudless surface of Kaoru's golden eyes told no tales. At times, Hikaru was almost sure she felt the same. At other times, he had no clue.

"Do you remember, Hikaru, when it all started?"

Kaoru had folded her other arm under her head, and had nestled her chin into the crook of her elbow. Her eyes twinkled coyly in the darkness as a breeze drew across the room. It was March, and the frosts had finally broken. The warmth still came and went like a fickle lover, but the twins liked to have the window open. After a long winter, it felt like getting out bed after a long illness.

How could he forget?

When the twins were five, it was decided that they would begin their respective education - Hikaru as a future samurai, Kaoru as a lady. By and large, the change amounted to Kaoru being forcibly pulled out of the yard, her wooden sword revoked, and the head lady in waiting carrying her under her arm kicking and screaming to the women's quarters. There, she was issued a needle, a piece of cloth with an ink pattern, and a ball of silk yarn.

"Of course, Kaoru. You cried so much."

"So did you" - she chuckled.

"I think you cried louder," he squeezed her hand. "Kaoru-sama's always been a crybaby. Shima still likes to tell everyone how they could hear you crying all the way in the servants' quarters." He found himself smiling in spite of himself at the story of how they became known as the two little devils.

"Well, what can I say, it worked" - Kaoru laughed. "Although I think me sewing the design into my hand instead of the silk was what really did it."

"No, I'm pretty sure it was when I gathered all our friends and led that glorious attack on the women's quarters -"

"Yeah, your glorious attack was vanquished by the washerwoman before you ever got past the doorstep. And I believe all she used was a broom."

"Yes, that's what she said at the time, but that broom had knives attached to it, I tell you what."

"Yeah, blunt kitchen knives..."

The twins burst into laughter and laughed for nearly a minute. It was too dark to see each other's faces, but Kaoru thought she saw a sparkle return to Hikaru's eyes, and let herself breathe easier.

Hikaru squeezed her hand again, cocking his head into the crook of his own elbow. Her hand was lightly calloused - both her hands were, from wielding twin katanas.

"Oh, Kaoru. You know - you, right here. That's all I need. Is that really so much to ask? Why must the world be so cruel?"

"You have me, Hikaru," Kaoru replied. "You always will, no matter what."

…

Kaoru sat in her palanquin, leaning her head against the windowframe. It was early, and she had not slept well the night before, so she had let herself get lulled into a slumber by the pitching of the carrier. She did not snap awake until the palanquin rounded a turn in the road - just in time to catch a glimpse of the castle before an outcropping of rock blocked the view. The Hitachiin stronghold was an imposing stockade situated atop a hill, the grasses billowing around it like a sea. While she had ridden away from it a thousand times before, that day marked the first time the entire household had come together to see her off. It had been a cold, grey morning, the clouds hanging low, and Hikaru stood in his place among the family, young and old lined up in ceremonious formation. He had looked uncommonly small in his fancy black dress-robes, his hair tied up in a knot and his face blotchy. Their mother's beautiful, marble-hewn face betrayed no expression as Kaoru bowed down before her, pronouncing a long string of honorifics and promising to represent her household well.

The path had begun to slant upward - the carriers labored and slowed down as the convoy's horses snorted and pawed the ground. She pondered the ridiculousness of it all. She could have easily ridden a horse. But no, she was a Lady now. Ladies did not ride. Ladies let people do things for them.

She sighed, casting a look across the leaden sky. The road wound higher and higher, a ravine yawning below them. Before they reached the Ootori lands, they would have to cross a mountain range. Kaoru had never been across, but she liked heights - when she was little, she would climb to the top of the stables and stare across the swath of rain-soaked rice paddies reaching all the way to the foot of the mountain. The fields were like a giant game of Go played on a mirror-surface, and she would watch the clouds float across it. Hikaru would always get nervous, mincing and fidgeting down below like a dog whose owner had tied it up and left. He'd call her a fool and yell at her to get down, but she would not listen, and stayed up on the roof for hours, transfixed by the colors chasing each other across the sky before congealing into a blood-red sunset. In those moments, Kaoru felt like the most fortunate girl in the world, and wondered what would happen if the bones of her back suddenly broke through her skin, became wings, and bore her away.

But no, she could not have flown away in good conscience - for how would have Hikaru fared without her? He had teased her about being the crybaby, but from a tender age Kaoru had been her brother's emotional pillar. It was always me against the world with Hikaru, and he was not the sort to go peacefully into that good night. Whenever he was punished, whenever he was told that he needed to improve, he would behave like the most uncouth of ronin, throwing his things down and tensing his jaw in anger. He had never been good at focusing, either, and was particularly bad at archery, where the object was to block everything out and see, but not with the eyes. What if he got himself into trouble? No, it wasn't even a question of if - it was a question of when and how bad. For instance, what if he rushed into the action too quickly? Hikaru had a lust for blood, at times not caring what side it was shed on as long as he was in the thick of things.

Of course, by rights her brother should not have been the foremost thing on her mind. He was the heir, but their mother still had her share of firepower, and Hikaru had time to get the wolf pup out of his system. Or so she hoped. No one was expecting it when they brought their father's youngest brother home from a routine patrol, his entire chest encrusted with blackened blood and his head pitched unnaturally back to reveal the pale underside of a jaw. Kaoru was eight years old at the time, and never saw him again.

The path wound higher still, the vegetation growing increasingly sparse. The rain-soaked mountainside gazed back from across the ravine, the fissures in the rock squinting like eyes. Stunted pines clung here and there amid the cliffs, and the river snaked its way, ribbon-like, along the bottom of valley.

Part of her was sure she would manage. She was a samurai, after all, and had a good head on her shoulders. As long as she thought with that and not with anything else, she was an even match for fate.


	3. Mitsouko

The farther the caravan drew away from her native land, the less Kaoru felt. After all, she had spent years training herself to feel less and less - although, no, that was wrong. It wasn't as if she felt less; she simply acknowledged her feelings, named them, felt them, drank them in, and then bracketed them away. Feelings were necessary, indispensable even. Without them the human race would not exist. But the world was split down the middle - into situations where emotions had weight and ones where they didn't. It took a lifetime of wisdom to know the difference, but at one point Kaoru had simply decided to err on the side of caution. To that end, she had just about turned into a comfortably floating shell when - after three days on the road - they came within sight of the Ootori stronghold.

It was as if someone had taken apart her home and had failed to put the pieces back together in the right way. It had the same collection of pagoda roofs battling for dominance against a darkening sky, and the walls looked to be made of the same centuries-old cherry wood, blackened and hard as tempered iron. The gates swept open and they entered the courtyard - the same well-packed gravel covering the ground. The servants bowed low as the the convoy in their beetle armor saluted. Kaoru opened the door and made a move to climb out, but before her feet had reached the ground she felt herself grow sick, as if the earth had turned into shingles and was floating away from under her. Someone caught her under the arms as the walls of the stockade began to reel, and there was a flurry of robes and flames and shouted orders. But the blood-orange sky still went black, and when Kaoru came to again, she was lying on a futon in the middle of a room with floral designs on the walls. A servant in greyish-green robes with an unfamiliar insignia was tending a flame in the corner, and he looked up as she sensed Kaoru's eyes upon her.

"Yes, my lady? Are you alright? Anything I can help you with?"

Kaoru looked dazedly around and shook her head. The contract stated that Kaoru was to leave all possessions behind, so of course -- it made sense that she'd be given a new servant.  
The woman nodded, biting her lips shiftily as she rose and bowed, stepping away towards the door.

"Alright, then, my lady. If you need anything, I will be right outside."

The door shut, and Kaoru stared at the floor for what felt like an eternity. The color was exactly the same as at home - the weave a bit larger perhaps, the shade slightly greener.

"Aw, Kaoru, come off it," she heard Hikaru's voice. "It's all the same. All of it." She could almost imagine him grin and cock his head the way he usually did, narrowing his eyes as his freckles begged to be booped and kissed. "Come to think of it, it's dumb. The warring factions, they're all basically the same family. What does it matter who wins, beyond our worm's eye view?"

She felt cold and spun around – but no, the spot beside her was empty as a pit. And Hikaru didn't have it in him to be that deep, either. It was her own voice in her head, as like as not, with Hikaru's face. She tried to blink her surroundings back into focus, but it only made the darkness sharper, as if there were arrows staring down from all the corners.

Never again.

Never.

No.

Kaoru sat up like a shot.

The darkness was playing with her mind - yes, that was it. And the travel had taken its toll. All she needed was a good night's sleep, and not to be jostled around for twelve hours a day. The days would pass quickly, now that she'd arrived. Kaoru had never been at a loss as to how to entertain herself. So long as they let her go outside once in a while, everything would be fine. She'd convince the Ootoris - whoever they were - that she was harmless, and maybe they'd let her write, or even go see Hikaru.

She snuffed out the light and climbed under the covers. She noticed her clothes were not the ones she'd traveled in - the robe was soft but unfamiliar. It did not matter, though. The bugs buzzed faintly in the corners, and the window was open just as at home, letting in puffs of wind now and again. Still, she could not shake the feeling that there was someone in the room. Not Hikaru again, no. Just... someone. She shut her eyes and drew her knees up to her chin, pulling the covers over her head.

...

In the morning, the sun crept in through the window with its fingers of pink light, but when the Hitachiin heiress opened her eyes, she found herself feeling no better. Not only were her muscles sore from knocking against a wooden box, but it also felt like someone had come and punched a hole through her chest. Kaoru had never been wounded, not seriously, so she could not imagine what that it must have felt like, but it seemed like the closest thing. The hurt was one that paralyzed, and she pulled her covers over her head again.

She did not know how much time had passed. The servant came by - several times - to see if there was anything she needed, but Kaoru remained prone with the blanket over her face. Each time, she replied with a muffled "humpf," and finally the woman gave up. Kaoru had finally managed to pack the blanket into a semblance of a human shape and wrapped her limbs around it, her muscles congealing into the sheets, when she heard a small, childlike voice.

"Um, excuse me, are you a fox spirit?"

Kaoru pulled the covers from her face.

A little girl stood at the foot of the bed. She couldn't have been more than ten years old and had hair as light as straw, but her robe was the kimono of a court lady – the silk expensive, custom-embroidered, and graced with a delicate pattern of cranes.

"A - a what?"

"A fox spirit!" The little girl beamed. "Everyone's been talking about the fox, and I thought I'd go see for myself."

"Well, you got me there" - Kaoru rolled her eyes, collapsing back on the bed. "I'm a fox spirit. A real, authentic fox spirit. I've got nine tails and everything."

For as long as she could remember, she and Hikaru had had to live with the fox spirit line. Much like foxes themselves , they were at times revered and at times maligned, and never knew where they stood in the end. As twins, their birth had been a happy occasion, but as redheads they might have been easily shunned if not for their status. Red hair wasn't vanishingly rare in Japan, but it was considered unlucky – often to the point of infanticide. Red was the color of foxes, and while some foxes were good, the ones that took on human form were evil until proven otherwise. It did not help, either, that the twins grew up to have fox-like features - sharp ski-jump noses and wide-set eyes, and the Hitachiin sigil was a nine-tailed fox. In time, Kaoru had learned to ignore the stares and whispers when she rode out into town, but it was still annoying and also the reason why Hikaru, who had always been the less stable of the two, had begun to twist early on, growing increasingly standoffish and shut off from the world.

"Well, I think you're very pretty," said the little girl. "You've got lovely red hair, and very pretty eyes. So you shouldn't be so sad."

"I - I'm not sad, I just -" Kaoru sat up shakily, fixing her eyes on her knees. She wasn't sure what the point was of lying was - her feelings were written clearly enough on her face, but she was too tired to care.

"You're far too pretty to be sad," repeated the girl. "If I were as pretty as you, I'd spend all day doing nothing but looking in the mirror."

"Uh... Thanks, I guess."

"What's your name?"

Kaoru looked the little girl up and down and squinted. No one in their right mind would dress a child like that, but her body also looked like puberty had not touched it. So perhaps she was a daughter-in-law in training, sent to live with her husband's family as something between a lady in waiting and a wife.

"Uh, Kaoru," she replied hesitantly. "And yours?"

"Mitsouko! Mitsouko Haninozuka. But everyone calls me Honey. I'm the Ootori household's artist in residence."

Artist in residence? What on earth was THAT?

But then again, it probably did not matter, and Kaoru was far too tired to come up with a way to ask without sounding rude.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Honey" - she sighed, fixing her eyes listlessly on her hands.

"It's nice to meet you too" – Honey sat down and slid across the futon into Kaoru's line of sight. "Now, it doesn't seem like you're a very dangerous fox spirit," she said, peering into the other girl's face. "But I think I should ask anyway, just to be safe. Do fox spirits eat rabbits?"

"Eat... rabbits?"

"Yes, rabbits," the little girl nodded emphatically. "I want to know if you eat rabbits."

"Well, uh, I guess I do - B-but only if I'm on a long patrol or something" - she added hastily, for the sides of the girl's mouth had begun to curl unhappily downward, the apples of her cheeks quivering. "I wouldn't eat a rabbit if I could help it; I much prefer fish -"

The girl's sunny expression snapped back into place, and she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around Kaoru's neck before the taller girl knew what hit her.

"Oh, good! Because if we're going to be sisters -"

"Sisters?!"

"Well, yes, everyone here calls me their little sister!"

"Uh... Alright?"

In reality, Kaoru had her own little sister at home - her name was Ageha - and while she was only a year old and the two of them had not formed a relationship quite yet, what with how busy Kaoru was -

" 'Cuz if you're going to be my sister, you're going to have to meet Usa-chan!"

"...Usa-chan?" Kaoru swallowed, feeling more and more insane by the second. At home, Ageha, too, had a stuffed animal of indeterminate breed with big ears that she liked to call Usa-chan. In fact, "usagi," or "rabbit," was one of the few words she had firmly mastered...

The little girl turned around and rubbed her two fingers together in the direction of the door. The screen slid open a few inches and a bunny hopped over the threshold.

A real, live bunny with grizzle-flecked fur and a dark muzzle, one ear pointing up and the other kinked.

"Isn't he CUTE? Do you want to hold him?" - Mitsouko beamed as the bunny hefted his plump form across the floor and hoisted himself up the finger's-breadth of distance between the futon and the floor.

But for one reason or another, by then Kaoru had had enough. Her entire chest registered a quake strong enough to level a small city, and she covered her eyes with her hand, clenching the other over her mouth.

...

Kyouya bumped into Mitsouko in the hallway to the women's quarters.

"How is she?" he inquired.

"Crying."

"How bad is it?"

"Bad." The girl clicked her tongue and rubbed her fingers together, beckoning to the bunny. "She didn't even want to hold Usa-chan."

Of course, the fact that Kaoru had not been crying until she got there was not something Kyouya needed to know - or so she had judged, for Kyouya was already nodding thoughtfully and reaching into his robe and - yes! - had pulled out a honey-cake, lobbing it discretely to Mitsouko at the level of his waist. The little girl seized it and bit down through the crispy crust, beaming as if nothing else existed.

"Alright, I'm going in," Kyouya said firmly.

"Good luck!" - Mitsouko huffed through the mouthful of dough.

"Thank you," Kyouya returned a thin smile, looking ahead of him to the end of the hallway. "But I tend to bring my own luck with me."


	4. And so Kyouya Met Her

A guest. No, really - why just a guest? Why not a prisoner of war was clear enough - one had to be directly captured to be one. But why NOT a wife? Kyouya had spent several days pondering the question. After all, he was nearly of age and so, according to his research, was Lady Kaoru. He couldn't see well, but he was not defective in other ways, so there was no reason why he could not be used to create an alliance. The only logical conclusion, therefore, was that his father - or perhaps the Hitachiins - did NOT want an alliance - not that marriage alone was even a surefire way of securing one, if his sister Fuyumi's case was any indication. But in that case, why on earth had he been assigned to look after a woman, much less THAT woman? Not only were the ladies of the court not technically allowed to see men outside their families - a rule he broke almost every day, granted - but from what he knew of Lady Kaoru, she was far more the man than he himself had ever been. Indeed, when it came to skills, all he really knew was the most basic hand to hand combat, as well as how to stab himself with the dagger he carried up his sleeve. The rest was just theory, and try as he might, he couldn't get much out of the bannermen as to Kaoru's personality. Which made sense - there wasn't much talking on the battlefield, and at her age she would not be making many tactical decisions. All he knew was the story of her birth - which was something of a legend - and the fact that her zodiac sign was the Dragon.

That said, he still walked with a confident step down the darkened hallway, feeling in front of him with his feet. His eyes were not much good when the only light came from cracks under the doors, but years of too much time on his hands had left him on intimate terms with every crack and snag in the reeds. He even knew the voices of every floorboard.

He stopped just short of the little-used room at the end of the hall and rolled his shoulders before sliding aside the door.

Inside, the window was open and the sun blazed so bright it cast the rest of the room into nearly complete darkness.

"I said, I don't want to be seen this way" - a voice protested from the corner with a shuffle of futon covers.

Kyouya paused. The voice was sweet - sweeter, even, than that of Sayuri, a lady in waiting who enjoyed singing and was quite good. And yet this voice also had an edge of steel in it, as if accustomed to giving orders to men of rank - and was laced with tears, which made for quite the odd combination.

Still, Kyouya hardly missed a beat in answering.

"Ah, but milady," he said. "If I stand far enough away, I can't see you. Beyond an arm's length, everything turns into a shadow for me. In fact, from here I can't see you at all, so you needn't be worried."

Kyouya waited, and the futon covers rustled, this time louder as if being thrown aside.

"If this is a joke, I'll find out, you know." Kyouya almost saw, in his mind's eye, a pair of lips being pursed.

"No joke, my lady. I am truly blind as a bat."

The floorboards squeaked, and a shape got out of the bed, stretching out against the sunlight.

"Blind as a bat, eh? You mean you can only see in darkness?"

So she was funny, was she? Kyouya smirked to himself. Well, at least the edge of steel had elbowed out the plaintive notes there were, which meant she was no longer crying.

"No, I'm afraid not," he said, smiling a little. "I'm even more hopeless in the dark."

The shape did not reply, but seemed to fold her arms over her chest - the rays were so blindingly bright that they created a halo and made it hard to discern even a silhouette.

"Well, at any rate, my name is Kyouya Ootori," he said, lowering himself onto one knee, "And I'm a son of this house. I'm sure you've had a more official welcome already, but -"

Come to think of it, he had spent so much time thinking about what Lady Kaoru might be like that he neglected to plan how exactly he would present himself to her.

"…But I thought you might use a friend, being so far away from home."

"Hm." Kaoru breathed in and out several times - a bit more deliberately than before. He could almost hear her thoughts go clickety-click as she debated how best to send him on his way without being rude. Which would have been fine, he supposed, and understandable - after all, people did not become best friends overnight, and it would not be his last attempt. "An Ootori?" she asked, her voice raising an eyebrow. "I don't think I've ever seen one before."

"Well, I've never seen a Hitachiin either," Kyouya replied with a practiced smile in his voice. "So when it comes to that, we're even. In fact" - he paused, folding his lips to match his cadence - "I still technically haven't seen a Hitachiin, so if you'd rather keep it that way -"

"Come here."

"Hm?"

"Come into the light."

"Oh. Yes, my lady."

Kyouya stepped forward, feeling his way across the tatami mats with his toes. He had not been to that particular room much before, and had been training ever fiber to act as a surrogate to his eyes from the moment he walked in. But before he had gone three paces, Kaoru raised a hand to stop him.

"An arm's length, did you say?"

"That's right."

"Alright, don't come any closer then."

Kyouya blinked. His poor nearsighted eyes were not used to drastic changes in light, and he might have had a hard time seeing her face even if he got closer. Still, he could feel the spikes of her demeanor go down as her breath slowed, the silhouette of her shoulders relaxing.

They were nearly the same height. Kaoru was shorter by the breadth of two fingers, and Kyouya Ootori… Well, Kyouya Ootori was perfectly ordinary. Vaguely handsome, to be sure, with a high-bridged, aristocratic nose and large eyes, but he was skinny for a boy his age, and it made her smile to think she could have easily bested him in a fight. Indeed, if he was an heir to the place - which he may well have been, wearing the lavender robes of a prince as he was - then he probably wasn't first in line regardless of parity. As like as not, he had been told to try and win her good graces as part of his duties as a gofer, but given the circumstances it did not matter. It wasn't as if she was an official ambassador. Until she figured out the exact sentiments of the house, as well as the real reason why she was there, staying unseen and unheard along with this fellow was hardly a bad plan.

"Are you quite sure you're… er, hard of seeing?" Kaoru narrowed her eyes, studying his face. "Your eyes look normal - not white or anything."

Indeed, she had seen blind people before - mostly beggars and artisans around the castle-town at home. Their pupils were glazed over like boiled eggs, whereas Kyouya's were dark like everyone else's. Even if he did stare at an invisible spot between them with surprising doggedness, she still couldn't be sure that he wasn't simply a good actor.

"Well, I'm not completely blind," he replied. "I'm just nearsighted. I used to be able to see farther away, but not any more."

"What's the farthest you can remember seeing?"

Kyouya angled his face downward, doing his best to keep his expression from changing, and pondered for a moment.

"Well, if you must know, it was a very, very long time ago. But for one reason or another I was brought out of the castle gates, and I could see the rice fields stretching out before me. They were flooded, and they looked like a giant Go board."

Kaoru did not need to know this, but ever since that day Kyouya had a special love for Go, even though the emotionally-laden memory would always muscle its way in and interfere with his strategy.

"Hm. I see," said Kaoru after a moment's silence. The edge of steel grew momentarily dull, as if his response had taken her by surprise. "So you'd like to be my friend, then?"

"I'm happy be your friend if you want one," Kyouya replied stolidly. "Anything you'd like, I'm happy to provide."

"Alright," Kaoru nodded, taking a step back. "What's there to do around here?"

…

"So how are you two doing?" Fuyumi Ootori swept into the room, her robes an opulent sea of greyish green. She was quite the beautiful young woman, one of the most famous beauties in the land, and had high color, an abundance of raven hair held barely in place by an army of pins, and stormy grey eyes identical to Kyouya's.

"Going stir crazy," Kaoru grumbled, tossing down a card, only to pull back and bite her thumb. She had not been sunshine and rainbows from the moment she arrived, but being cooped up was quickly turning her into Hikaru.

Not that she and Kyouya had not been busy. They had made the rounds of the castle's very impressive amenities, from the great hall to the smithy, but the fact that she couldn't go outside aside from the garden was grating on Kaoru's nerves not a little. Halfway through Kaoru had begun to feel herself grow moody and irritated, and acquiesced that whatever Kyouya wanted to do was alright - she did not care. To that end, they were back in the women's quarters, playing a lazy game of card-matching. It was early in the hour of the Horse, and most of the Ootori roses had retired for a midday nap, leaving the common area a mess of embroidery and outer garments.

"Oh, darling -" Fuyumi knelt down so she was at eye level with Kaoru and reached out to press the back of her hand against her face. Her outermost robe, Kaoru noticed, had butterflies on the lapels, and in her entirety Fuyumi rather reminded Kaoru of spring incarnate, with bright eyes and healthy, rotund forms.

"Are you feeling alright?"

Kaoru was growing warm - for she was unused to being indoors and wearing six robes at a time like a proper lady. She had tried to fan herself indelicately with the cards, and had been trying to make the game more lively by putting together word-combinations that sounded ridiculous or dirty. But it wasn't working. She was growing steadily more sick by the minute, and a wet, sticky web was starting to cling to her limbs. Of course, she hadn't told Kyouya that - not after she had likely come off as a shrew during their initial meeting.

"Kyouya," Fuyumi looked up in the direction of her brother, her voice as testy as that of someone with a milk-fed personality was likely to get. "How can you allow your lady to look so sad?!"

"Fuyumi, I -" Kyouya had half a mind to her that until she had come in, the lady had insisted, repeatedly, that she was fine. But Fuyumi had turned back to Kaoru, peering earnestly into her face.

"Darling, are sure you're alright? You feel warm."

Kaoru looked down, unwillingly pushing her face into the woman's hand, and felt her lips quiver.

She was warm indeed. Too warm. She was not ill, but her whole predicament was making her feel like she was running a fever. She was not normally an angry person, and liked to think she was good at mastering both emotion and pain. But all of that day she had felt raw, and her limbs had felt odd: not so much sore, but as if fibers of flesh were withering away one by one.

"I - I just… I can't stand…"

"You miss home?"

Kaoru shook her head.

"No? Do you want to go to bed? Are you tired?"

The girl shook her head, more desperately this time.

From where Kyouya sat across the table, Kaoru's face looked like little more than a smudge of sun, but from the noises she had begun to make in her chest he gathered she was about to cry, so he rose from his seat and came to kneel - still a respectable distance away - by the side of his sister.

"Lady Kaoru," he said. "Am I correct in assuming you were training to be a samurai before?"

Kaoru nodded, gulping.

"Well, then, regardless of what you said before, it seems like maybe being inside, wearing multi-layered robes, and engaging in leisurely pursuits for too long is not… natural for you?"

Kaoru shook her head. "It's not… It's definitely not."

Kyouya turned to his sister. "Fuyumi," he mouthed, "We're not supposed to do this… She's not even supposed to have weapons - or anything that looks like weapons - or men's clothes."

"Aw, Kyouya." Fuyumi tented the finely-shaped teardrops she had for eyebrows. "You're intelligent, I'm sure you can think of something."

…

The three of them stood at the edge of a field, and the wind ran its fingers through Kyouya's hair. He had not been to the field used for horseback-archery in a long time - nor had the field seen much use with all the real-life battles to occupy the bannermen. Bales of reeds marked off the perimeter, and the surface was overgrown with grass. Kaoru stood a little way's away with her back to Kyouya, dressed in one of his extra robes with the Ootori sigil, a phoenix, on the back. Her pants were hoisted up, and she was barefoot. The third person present sat athwart a horse and held a bow and arrow. His name was Takashi Morinozuka, and was Honey-Mitsouko's cousin, Fuyumi's sometime love interest, a man of remarkably few words, and one of the best sellswords in the land.

The sun had begun to slant - the worst of the day's heat was gone, and the billows of the sun were being wafted away by the east wind. The Ootori lands were near the sea, and sometimes Kyouya could imagine that he smelled a bit of salt in the air when the winds were high.

"Alright, so," he said, trying to make his voice sound unfazed despite his lingering doubts as to the enterprise. "I will stand here, and Mori will be on the other end of the field, and we'll both keep time to the best of our ability."

Kaoru rolled her head and then her shoulders, making large circles with her arms. Ever since she had gotten outside, there had been a good deal more energy in her step, even though she still felt raw. She wanted to mouth off that she knew exactly why Takashi was really there - as per Kyouya's would-be joking question as to whether she could outrun a horse, the sellsword's presence was a reminder that she was still a prisoner. Indeed, she had half a mind to retort something in the vein of, "yeah, just put me on a leash already," but the warmth of hour of the Goat was slowly draining the Hikaru out of her, and the wind had reached under her tunic to soothe away the hurt.

"Alright, ready?"

"Yes, ready, Lord Kyouya," she replied, trying to infuse her voice with gratitude. After all, he barely knew her, and he was still sticking out his neck for her.

"Alright - One," Kyouya raised a finger into the air, and Kaoru assumed a takeoff stance, "Two… Go…"

Kaoru hardly needed to be told. She took off before the word had made it out of her mouth, kicking up earth and her heels flying. She made it across the field in under half a minute, and Kyouya felt a small flutter of horror as the fleck that was her robe faded into the surroundings. But then he heard her skid to a halt and turn around again, returning the way she came. Before another half-minute passed, she had ran past him without stopping, doubled back again, and took off once more in Takashi's direction. She repeated the process five or six times before coming to a stop and doubling over, heaving audibly as she swallowed gulp after hungry gulp of air.

Kyouya came towards her, making sure to stop at arm's length.

"Thank… You," Kaoru panted.

"No trouble at all."

"No, I've been… derelict in expressing my gratitude to you, Lord Kyouya. I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize. I'm here to fulfill your wishes to the best of my ability."

"Yeah, because someone assigned you to it, didn't they?" - there was a smirk in her voice.

"No -"

"It's alright if they did."

"Well, even if that were true I'm still -" Happy to have met you? He was, oddly enough. He couldn't say it lest she accuse him of being disingenuous, and he couldn't even strictly speaking say that he LIKED her yet, but for some reason - "You're still sad, though."

Kaoru had stopped panting, but her breathing had turned ragged, as if she was about to vomit or turn lachrymose.

"I - I suppose you're right. I am. A little."

"Do you… miss someone or something?"

Kaoru nodded. "Yes."

Kyouya sighed, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Obviously, for that particular problem he had no remedy, and they did not yet know each other well enough for him to regale her with soul-saving rhetoric.

"Is it… your brother?" Yes, Lady Kaoru had a brother - that much he had known for a long time. And if they fought together, then it stood to reason -

Kaoru nodded, still looking at the ground. Her back had ceased to rise and fall, and he wondered if she was holding her breath deliberately.

"Yes."

"Were you pretty well-matched in your speed, then?"

"I… I suppose so." Kaoru sighed, straightening. "Sometimes I won, and sometimes he won, but we kept a tally and last I checked it was almost exactly even."

"And you miss racing him?"

Admittedly, Kyouya also missed the days when he and his brothers were friends. The day that Akito made Kyouya his first wooden sword to practice with - before it became abundantly clear that he would not be needing it. And all the nights he had listened to Yuuichi read stories as he rested on his chest as a toddler.

"I do. It's not as fun to race yourself."

"I understand."

They were silent for a moment, the wind rippling up and down the field.

"I could race you, if it'll make you feel better."

Kaoru glanced him up and down and stifled a laugh. Kyouya certainly did not look like he got out of doors much - nor did he look like he'd done a day of work in his life.

But then again, she did not want to be ungrateful, so she nodded.

They called Takashi over and informed him of their plan. The sellsword nodded stolidly and assumed his position at the starting line. He counted to three, and they were off.

For the first minute or so, Kyouya had done well in keeping up with Kaoru, but starting in the middle of the second lap, he began to feel like he was drowning. His chest felt like a searing cage - every effort to struggle against the bars left him desperate for air, and he began to feel like he'd been stabbed under the ribcage. Before he had gone a dozen more steps, he could not take it any more, and stumbled to a halt.

He stared at the ground, clutching his thighs, for what felt like an eternity, and then noticed a shadow fall at his feet.

"Lord Kyouya?"

That's it. She's going to start laughing now. What had he been THINKING offering her a race? He was defective, weak, a half-woman. He had conveniently forgotten this in his zeal to make her feel better, but the fact remained. He felt a wave of nausea come on and his face grow red.

"Are you alright?"

Her voice sounded softer than before. Not coddling like Fuyumi's, and not pitying, either… She sounded, for lack of a better analogy, like someone who had seen that sort of thing before, and as if it was… routine.

The shadow stepped closer. "Does the bottom of your chest hurt?"

Oh, hell, yes, it hurt - the dagger was had lodged deep in the bottom of his lung and his ribs and neck felt like overwrought ropes. Even the back of his head and his temples hurt - but Kyouya gritted his teeth and said nothing, only nodded. If only KAORU were blind right then - yes, that would've been incredibly helpful.

"That's alright - it happens all the time. Which side's worse?" She crossed the space between them as Kyouya nodded to the left, and put a hand on either side of his torso, pressing firmly. "It's just breath that got trapped. It's painful, but it's not dangerous."

The pressure had a marginal effect, but far more than that, it took him a few seconds, but then a realization hit Kyouya so hard it well-nigh made him forget everything else. Lady Kaoru was not within arm's length anymore. She was standing right by his side, pressing under his ribs, and peering earnestly into his face. In fact, he could see her features almost perfectly. As per hearsay, they were foxlike, with an upturned nose and a sharp chin, but what had struck him most were the eyes. Liquid gold was right - it wasn't just a legend. And they were also so large they took up nearly half her face.

"How's that?"

"Better, thank you" - his lips formed the words before he could register their meaning.

Kaoru nodded, her irises catching the light in such a way that made it hard to read her expression. "When you breathe too fast, you end up breathing in more than you breathe out. The air gets trapped, and that's why it feels like you can't get enough. Try and focus on breathing out right now - it might seem strange, but just do it."

Her voice was calm - ever the expert teacher or healer, but more than that, he legitimately could not remember being that close to a woman in - no, scratch that, that close to ANYONE in quite some time. Not that she even felt like a woman: her hands were gentle and long-fingered, but they were still more like those of a man, with blunt nails, somewhat calloused palms, and a confident and well-practiced grip.

Kyouya tried to obey, quelling the worry that he might grow light-headed, and sure enough, it helped. His chest began to feel less like a hot cage, and the incongruous parts of him that had hurt were slowly ceasing to do so. He even began to notice that Lady Kaoru smelled like a combination of freshly cut grass, wet earth, and a little bit of sweat, but not in an unpleasant way.

"I think you tried to run too quickly too soon." She smiled. "Maybe we should start off building your endurance, and then work on speed."

"N-no, I really don't think that's -"

"Come off it, Lord Kyouya, we need to teach you how to run." She flattened her lips. "Running's the foundation of pretty much everything else when it comes to fighting. After all, what are you going to do if some other house - a hypothetical third house, the Suohs let's say - come in here and -"

The spell had shattered. Kyouya took an unwilling step back, lifting his hands to draw hers down from his chest.

"Well, then, I guess I'll just commit seppuku."

Kaoru stared at him for a moment - or seemed to. The spaces on her face where her eyes had been - the sun-colored eyes that he thought so beautiful a moment ago - were fixed on him intently, but he wasn't sure if he was grateful or not that he couldn't read their expression.

"I don't know, Lord Kyouya." Kaoru made a sound akin to sucking her lip. "Maybe it's not my place to say but… I have a feeling you don't really want that."

Yeah. Uh-huh. Kyouya swallowed a scoff. What did SHE know about waste - or what he wanted, for that matter? Suddenly, he felt overcome with the urge to hit something, and took another step back, bracing his entire body.

"I just don't think it's right to give up so easily. Suicide is an honorable thing, but it IS a last resort."

Mother of - WHO WAS THIS WOMAN? She had only just met him - what business did she had telling him what his life was worth?!

"Why… why do you care so much?" Kyouya managed through clenched teeth, stepping further away still. "I'm nobody to you."

Kaoru seemed to hesitate.

"Well, no, you're not exactly nobody. You're a -" Friend? No. He had as good as admitted that he was ordered to spend time with her, so that was out. "Well, you're a good host, for one. You've gone and taken me outside, and I'm not stupid or deaf - I know it's not allowed, and I know that even you don't trust me to not go sprinting off right now - which by the way I'm not going to do, so you can rest easy."

"Well, that still doesn't mean you should care what'll happen to me if this place gets sacked."

"Alright, so maybe I don't, but I still think you're giving up on yourself too easily. Just because you can't see very well doesn't mean you can't do the same things as everyone else does. After all, Zatoichi was blind, and he was a legendary swordsman -"

Whatever strings had been holding Kyouya's temper in place broke with a deafening snap.

"ZATOICHI ISN'T REAL, LADY KAORU! STOP! JUST - JUST STOP!"

Kaoru swallowed audibly, and Kyouya heard dry reeds crunch underfoot as she stepped back. He breathed hard, trying his best to reign himself in, but the words came up like vomit.

"You're talking as if you know something about me," he spat. "But with all due respect, you don't! You - you're a samurai. You're a woman, but you've become a samurai. Don't tell me you did it without someone there to tell you not to listen to the naysayers… Without someone to put the right notions in your head at the right time… Without someone to remind you that you could, and that the teachers weren't just wasting time on you -"

Kyouya's voice broke, and the outlines of the world grew blurrier than normal. The wind rustled, a bird screeched across the sky, and he covered his face with his hand, biting down on the part where his palm met his wrist.

"Well, now you're talking as if you know something about me," Kaoru's voice came, calmly enough, from a few paces away.

Kyouya did not answer. A hot nausea was rising up his chest, and his entire face had begun to spasm.

Kaoru sighed, and seemed to take a step toward him from the way her shadow blocked the light.

"Alright, Lord Kyouya. Look, I'm sorry. I was out of line, and you're right. I'm just like that, I suppose. If I'm not careful, I end up forcing my version of the truth down people's throats and -" She sniffled a chuckle. "Though if it makes any difference, my brother's even worse."

Kaoru's voice began to fade away, and so did her silhouette. Suddenly, Kyouya felt like a small child again, standing before a series of doors as they slid shut one by one.

"No, I'm sorry, Lady Kaoru," he heard his own voice from far away. "I shouldn't have raised my voice at you like that."

Curse it. Curse it, curse it, curse it… Where was Lady Kaoru ten years ago, when he had first begun to give up? He wasn't even angry at her, he realized. For years, he had blamed everyone but himself, and had pushed people away. Now he was pushing her away, too - even though she was his last chance at just about everything.

"And I shouldn't have assumed things. I'm sorry for that, too."

"That's alright. Everyone assumes things about me," Kaoru replied mildly. "I'm used to it by now."

"I'm just worried it's too late."

Kaoru chuckled.

"Well, I don't know. It might be a little late for some things, but surely not everything." The smile was back in her voice, and Kyouya looked up. Kaoru's hands were on her hips, and the sun was beaming around her like a burning halo. "Come on, Lord Kyouya. Let's try again. We can start by running slowly, and if you can't breathe, just remember to breathe out and slow down even more."

…

That evening, Mitsouko returned to the women's quarters after her daily meeting with Takashi, and observed a curious sight. Lord Kyouya and Lady Kaoru were sitting in a corner by the balcony, a little too close together in Mitsouko's estimation, and Kyouya's hands on top of Kaoru's as he positioned them on the strings of a shamisen.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear," - Kaoru was laughing - "No, I can't, I'm hopeless - look, I'm so clumsy it's crying -"

"No, you can, I promise," Kyouya insisted, silencing an unhappy whine from the strings with his palm. Mitsouko was loth to admit it, but at Lady Kaoru's hands the instrument really did sound like a cat with its tail chopped off - and yet there was a new, scarcely definable cadence in Kyouya's voice as he adjusted the plucker under her fingers. "If I can work up to running three laps in a row in one day, surely a you can learn to pluck three strings."

"Oh, yes, three laps at the speed of a turtle and three strings like a drunken cat in heat…"

"Aren't they precious?" - Fuyumi caught sight of Mitsouko and motioned her to a corner of the room where she, Sayuri the sweet-voiced, and a third young woman named Fujiko were unraveling spools of silk. "It almost makes me wish I was young again." She shifted in her seat, searching for the end of a string she had dropped, and the crimson rays set half her hair ablaze.

Mitsouko sat down by her side, and Usa-chan hopped onto her lap, nibbling at her fingers. As she reached for the teakettle, her sleeve nearly fell into a nearby cup, but Fuyumi caught it just in time.


	5. Makoto and the Fox Spirit

Dear Hikaru,

I hope you're doing well, or as well as you can under the circumstances. I also hope our entire esteemed family is happy and healthy - once again, as far they can be under the circumstances. You'll be glad to know I've arrived safely and have been comfortably lodged, and aside from not being able to go outside very much, I have no complaints. I made a new friend, and his name is

Kaoru balled the piece of parchment into a clump and tossed it at the wall.

Hikaru would not be happy to know she made new friends, and certainly wouldn't care what their names were. In fact, if she knew Hikaru at all, he'd much prefer if she penned tales of woe, but her hand had rushed ahead on its own accord, because… because dash it all, she WAS starting to feel happy. She wasn't happy about being happy, and it made her gut rumble with guilt and remorse, but still - it was remarkable how quickly she'd fallen in line. Once she got over the guilt of sleeping in - which, as a guest, she was allowed to do - she found it to be mightily refreshing - particularly when she got to lie under the covers with the blanket pulled up to her chin, the sun on her eyelids and life slipping slowly by. She loved mornings like that, when she was under no pressure to exist, and was free from the tyranny of bells and gongs. At first she thought about the circumstance as if it was something depraved, as a virgin might have done about the act of love, but by and by she'd slipped into it, like into a warm cocoon. She even found that if she held her breath long enough, and listened to the creak of tatami mats in the next room, she could imagine she was lying next to Hikaru, their bodies folded around each other not close enough to touch, but close enough to know that the other was there.

The other thing that she'd observed, when she got to know who was who, was that - for lack of a better term - Kyouya served the role of mother. Not only did he keep accounts - a task considered beneath a man and a samurai - but he also brought them into the common room with him and taught the other girls. And just as he'd begun to teach the shamisen to Kaoru, he also schooled the others in the feminine arts: in everything from what sort of fish was best served with what sauce, to seasonal flower decor, to traditional poetry recitation. Yoshio Ootori's wife was never seen - although there were two concubines - and the only time she was mentioned was when Kyouya went to "visit mother." However, this only happened on the order of every two days, and no one explained why she lived the way she did, never leaving her room.

Kyouya looked up from his calligraphy. Though his world was only an arm's length square, he was still adept at writing small, and from where Kaoru sat, she could not read his paper.

"The words not coming today, Lady Kaoru?"

"No, rather the wrong words." She chuckled, pulling another piece of parchment towards her.

The weather had been growing warmer by fits and starts, and the doors of the main hall had been thrown open. The trees outside were bare, but beyond the horned rim of the rooftop Kaoru could see the sky, which was brilliant blue with high winds and a kite whipping to and fro.

"I suppose it's more about what people want than about the truth."

"Oh, I see." The corners of Kyouya's mouth twitched. "And here I thought you were the sort of woman who spoke her mind, regardless of who wanted to hear it."

Kaoru pursed one side of her mouth, pulling the block of ink toward her. It was hard to understand Lord Kyouya at times. He was so civil, almost to the point of dryness, and hardly ever smiled - but it was not unpleasant to be around him. He seemed to have one facial expression - a grey, blank-slate sort of mask with half-closed eyes as he looked in his interlocutor's general direction and seemed to tune out everything but their voice. From what she could guess, he had limited exposure to facial expressions after a certain age, and that made him a natural at deadpan. But Kaoru felt uncomfortable with deadpan herself - or felt she ought to have been - for tricksters though she and Hikaru were, she had always preferred humor a little louder.

She leaned over the block and ground the mortar into the ink, squeezing out a streak of dark blue ink.

"I'm sorry about that, my lord," she replied. "I truly am. I really didn't mean to sound like your mother that time."

"Don't worry, you didn't. And don't apologize - it did me good."

Was his voice… too conciliatory just then? Yes, yes it was. With Lord Kyouya it was all about inflexion. Not that she wasn't hallucinating inflexion every step of the way, for she had been blessed, or perhaps cursed, with a love for over-analysis. For example, the very first day after their foray into the archery field, she could swear she heard a echo of a very stiff morning in Lord Kyouya's every word - along with the word "hellcat."

In short, with Hikaru, it was what-you-see-is-what-you-get, but with this boy, it was quite another story.

Kaoru's thoughts were interrupted by a loud clink - and what might have been a crash had she not looked up to find Mitsouko with an outstretched arm over the table, her wrist pinched between Kyouya's thumb and forefinger and her sleeve in his other hand.

Kaoru stifled a giggle.

In the weeks that followed her arrival, she'd tried very hard to figure out what kind of artist Mitsouko was. She certainly had no knack for the arts of leisure. Indeed, if Kaoru sounded like a cat on the shamisen, Mitsouko sounded like the selfsame cat tortured to death and returned from the underworld. And if Kaoru suspected that Mitsouko was older than she looked - largely on account of Kyouya calling her "senpai" - then her calligraphy skills left much to be desired, seeing how they resembled frank chicken-scratch. Truly, when Kaoru thought about it, the only discernible skill that Honey HAD was the ability to consume record numbers of Honey-cakes.

"Easy there, Mitsouko" - Kyouya drew aside her hand and put it on her lap with a gentle pat. "Try too hard and you'll overreach yourself."

The fatherly - or perhaps lover-ly - gesture had no effect on Mitsouko, however.

"I'm sowwy, Kyo-chan" - Mitsouko looked down, her eyes filling with tears, and her lip began to quiver. "I - I ruined it, didn't I? I'm awful -"

For an instant, Kaoru wondered if the whole thing was a flirtation of sorts, given how ambiguous their relationship was. For one thing, Honey was older, yet she was treated like a spoiled child; for another, she was neither a member of the family not Kyouya's wife or betrothed - for if she was, she would have been introduced as such, and would not have worn the ample sleeves and the flowing hair of a single woman.

"No, you didn't ruin anything, Lady Honey" - Kaoru swept to her side, mopping up the tea with a stray hand-towel.

Better that, she had thought - than to continue wondering.

"Here, from what I know, you're supposed to pin your sleeve back, like so" - she took the sleeve back from Kyouya's hand and wrapped it around Honey's wrist, tucking it into itself. Her fingers brushed against Kyouya's wrist and she noticed the pattern of sea, white against an inky blue.

A few days ago, Kaoru had tried a more direct tactic - namely, that of asking point-blank what Honey was. But Kyouya, as luck would have it, liked to answer in riddles or not at all.

"That is an interesting question with an interesting answer," he had said, glancing up from the accounts.

"I… see." Kaoru raised her eyebrow. "And that interesting answer would be?"

"Well, it wouldn't be very interesting if I told you."

"Yes, indeed. But that would render the interest artificial at best - for how do I know you're not making a mountain out of a mole-hill?"

Kyouya's eyebrow had twitched and he had blinked his eyes, languidly, in the face of the sunlight.

"Well, I suppose you'll just have to trust me. How about we make it a game? You like games, don't you?"

Kaoru did like games - indeed, the two of them had stayed up well past bedtime the previous night, burning the midnight oil in a tightly matched game of shogi**. Both had refuse to budge, and even foreswore the natural needs until it became clear that there would be no victor.

(**A Japanese game of the chess family.)

"Why don't you guess what Mitsouko is? If you guess right, you get a special prize of your choosing - within reason, of course. But for every guess that you get wrong, there will be one condition of MY choosing imposed on your reward. And you're not allowed to ASK anyone what Mitsouko is, either."

Under different circumstances, Kaoru might have been offended. After all, SHE was the glorified hostage in his home, yet he was the one sitting like a cat in the sunlight, blinking his eyes and imposing limits.

But then again, she could not have been a hoot to take care of, prying and nagging nuisance that she was, so she adjusted her robes - three layers instead of six - and nodded, wrinkling her nose in surreptitious revenge across the expansive table.

"Fine, I accept your terms. Just no putting sticks in my wheels, alright?'

Since then, however, all Kaoru gleaned was that Mitsouko was deeply privileged and yet apart, which led to her to suspect a "Tea-haired barbarian."

But Kyouya merely cocked his head like a sleek, dark-eyed, clever bird of the game variety, and shook his head.

"Although that would be some pretty weak tea, wouldn't it?" He smiled casually - as he usually did - with just the corners of his mouth - and Kaoru felt grateful she was sitting far away as she was, and that he wouldn't see her scowl. Yes, Honey had remarkably light hair, but there was something that stuck about the moment. Banter and jabs aside, it felt almost… good to be with Kyouya. There was no need to censor her expressions, and she was free. Free of the hardest restraints she'd mastered as a samurai.

Of course, the ordeal grew more frustrating when she learned, only an hour later, that Takashi was Honey-senpai's cousin. As such, he stolidly affirmed that their family was Yamato through and through, and after that, Kaoru decided that she'd wait a while - and actually gather information before guessing.

…

Dogged though he was in guarding Honey's secret, Kyouya went out of his way for Kaoru. They still went to the archery field every day, and still ran laps under Takashi's watchful eye. And after two weeks of that, all it took was a single complaint from Kaoru - to the effect that she was bored doing the same thing every day - and he showed up at her door the next morning. Kaoru lay awake and cuddled in her cocoon, imagining Hikaru beside her.

"Lady Kaoru? Are you awake?"

"Yes. Come in."

She did not miss Hikaru, exactly. She expected it to be worse, and she wondered if she'd suppressed any feelings of loss - for they wouldn't have been practical. And yet she still did not want to open her eyes.

"Do you want to go riding today, Lady Kaoru?"

"Riding?"

Kaoru opened her eyes.

"Yes, riding. I've loaded off my work for the day, and we can take a turn with Takashi around some of the lands - under pretext of an inspection of some kind. But if we want to get away with it, we have to get ready soon."

Kaoru was up before Kyouya had finished speaking.

"Up and ready? You mean armor and a helmet and such?"

"Well, yes, obviously -" He was about to gesture to his own hair to indicate Kaoru's uncommon color, but she seized him by the wrist.

"Well, what are we waiting for?!"

And so they were off. With some help from Takashi, they first stole some armor from the repository. Takashi, as the hired sword, was allowed some freedom in his movements, and Kyouya crafted an edict that charged him with resolving a tax dispute. Kaoru's presence was explained by the need for two swords to protect the lord - and as for her name, they picked a bannerman who was safely passed out in the pleasure enclave. As a result, they got through the gate check with relative ease - though it didn't keep Kaoru from shaking in her helmet.

Kyouya rode by her side, clad in his usual purple robes under a light set of armor. There was more than two arms' length between them, so he couldn't have seen her face - but he still kept looking over.

And Kaoru - Kaoru was blissful. Her heart beat loudly in her ears, and she kept imagining hoofbeats in pursuit - but the sun stood high in the sky, the clouds were pearlescent and long, and the river lay threaded through the hills like a glistening ribbon. Kyouya explained than the Ootori lands lay by the sea, but had admitted he'd never seen it. Kaoru had never seen it either, and was not sure she wanted to. There were stories of strange and odd things that came from the sea, as well as people who disappeared in it, never to be seen again. But after weeks of having seen sky the fenced off - either by bales of hay or a pagoda roof, she could imagine the vast expanse in the distance.

The road lay flanked on either side by rice fields, and a wood of solemn maples stretched beyond. The river, in all probability, flooded in the early spring, and the paddies lay covered in mirror-glass. Here and there, men and women stood knee-deep in the water, their trousers hoisted up, and tended the stalks. Kaoru wondered what they know about politics. Probably nothing. All THEY cared about was whether the sun shone, and whether the rain fell, and what the tax rate was. If the armies stayed away - never mind the hidden costs - it was just another day. Not to mention that she had no right to be complaining. She was one person after all, and one person in exchange for the peace of thousands was a fairly good trade.

"I say, Lord Kyouya," she ventured in an effort to take her mind off things. "If you won't tell me about Honey-senpai, will you tell me about your sister? Honestly, I feel like I'm a pariah of some sort - I don't know anything."

Indeed, it was more than that. From the moment she'd arrived, it felt like everyone had something to hide. The way they fell silent when a conversation went a certain way, and the way they answered questions - as if the answer they gave was the only you would receive, try as you might to rephrase your query.

Kyouya chuckled without moving his lips.

"What do you want to know?"

"Well, for one thing, isn't she a good ten years older than both of us? And she's quite lovely from what I've seen, and your house is not a bad one. Why does she live at home?"

"Oh." Kyouya looked into the horizon - the pearly bits of cloud melting away. "Well, I suppose I may as well tell you, since it's common knowledge anyway."

"Common knowledge? But I've hinted and I've hinted -"

Kyouya smirked and wrapped the reigns over his hand, tossing them over the horse's neck. The beast twitched its ears and snorted. Kyouya, Kaoru noticed, was very capable of riding - which, granted, almost every rosy-fingered noblewoman was. But he and the animal knew each other but little, what with how suspiciously pale Kyouya's knuckles were as he gripped the reigns.

"Well, it's a secret that everybody knows, but pretends they don't."

Kaoru sank a bit in her seat. Of course. And, of course, only a pariah wouldn't know this for a fact.

"And I suppose there's no harm in me telling you as long as the secret doesn't leave this road. The fact of the matter is, you're right. She was quite a famous beauty - still is. And she's been married. Three times." Kyouya paused, his eyes on the horizon, and sniffed a laugh, his face placid as ever."The first time she was married was into a clan called Shido. Apparently it was a love-match, though I can't be sure - I was only three at the time. But the peace didn't last. When conflict broke out again, she was offered safe passage out, and though honor might've dictated that she die with her husband, she was about as old as us right now - and scared. After that, she had two more matches. But her second husband died under mysterious circumstances a month after the wedding, and her third husband caught a fever and passed away as well. After that, she became known as Mistress Death among the matchmakers. And, as you can imagine, no one wants to be the husband of Mistress Death, much less her fourth one."

He paused, flicking his tongue over his lips.

Kaoru's mouth had fallen open.

"S-so she's been here ever since? How many years has it been?"

Kyouya shrugged. "Five. Going on six. To be honest, I don't think she's unhappy."

"Well, it can't be an easy reputation to have."

"It is what it is, I suppose. Interestingly enough, if you call her Mistress Death, she'll answer."

Kaoru's feelings on the situation - or rather, Kyouya's presentation of it - had barely begun to congeal into a semblance of coherence when Kyouya spoke again.

"It's not really that big a shame, really. After all, the prevailing notion is that she's fallen short of her duty in life, but we're all just pieces in someone else's game. Fuyumi's just a piece that's been retired early, that's all."

"T-that's all?"

"Yes. We're all just waiting to be get to the other end of the shogi board and to get knighted - either that, or to get eaten along the way. And when we're knighted, nothing changes. We're still just trying to survive. We're able to make better, faster moves, but in the end our hands are still tied because of factors we don't see and lots we didn't choose."

"Huh." Kaoru slowed down her horse. "But if that's so, then who's playing the game?"

"I don't know." Kyouya shrugged. "The gods. Unseen powers."

"Unseen powers?"

Kaoru pondered.

Indeed, the world-view that religion taught was a rigid one. Certain people were inherently better than others, and as long as everyone remained in their place the world was in balance. But then again, it was also taught that women were inferior to men, and everything that Kaoru learned from the day she was born - from her mother's example and her own - had flown in the face of that. So either the rules were nonsense, or she and her mother had been lucky in breaking the mold. And yet if they were lucky and the world was in disarray due to people like them - then why on earth did the gods stack the dice in their favor?

"You can't really believe that" - Kaoru gave a soft laugh, toying with her reigns. "You're a rational being. Wouldn't you think that if the gods were really playing a game, then they'd follow their own rules? And everything would BE in harmony, and they wouldn't allow someone like me to exist?"

Kyouya was silent for a moment. A crane flew, honking, across the sky.

"It doesn't matter if I believe that or not. The way we understand 'the rules' may be imperfect - in fact, it most likely is. I mean, have you ever seen a shogi piece try to battle its master? And speaking of people like you, just because you fill an unconventional role right now doesn't mean you always will." He smiled at the braided brush of his horse's mane. "For all anyone knows, for instance, you may yet go on to get married and become a mother and wife - and willingly, too. And none of it would be against the rules, whatever they are. It might seem like you're rebelling, but it could all be part of a plan."

"I don't know about that." Kaoru had ceased to look at her companion, and had taken up inspecting the imprints of her harness. They bore a phoenix, just like her borrowed running robes. "I'm not sure who'd want me for a wife. Children, household, laundry, foodstuffs - I have no head for such things, and even if I did, I'd find them incredibly boring. Also, I'm even that beautiful."

"I wouldn't say that."

"Don't flatter me - I know it's your job. Besides, how many beautiful women have you even seen?"

Kaoru did not look up, but she imagined Kyouya pursing his lips - if not in act then in thought most certainly.

"Alright, well, regardless. Beauty is a poor investment. And besides, we in the samurai class are able to delegate the responsibilities you claim to hate. So all I mean is that it COULD happen. After all, from what I hear your mother was a lot like you, and her marriage is a success."

"Yes - quite the success." Kaoru clicked her tongue. "She was carried to the altar kicking and screaming, and after that my father had to starve her for weeks to subdue her. She tried to commit suicide, too, and they took away everything she had - even the bedsheets."

"Er -"

It was Kyouya's turn to fall silent. The path had begun to slant upward, and they were starting to ascend a hill. The river cut through the middle, leaving slats of clay on either side that looked like a giant had taken a bite out of them.

"I wonder that you can speak so calmly about this" - Kyouya said after a moment's pause.

"I wonder that YOU can speak so calmly about Fuyumi. And I wonder that you don't know the story. I would've assumed it reached you, even in these parts."

"Oh, it did. I didn't know whether to believe it."

"HALT!"

"What on -" Takashi pulled abruptly on his reigns and sat up in his saddle. Kyouya and Kaoru followed suit, but saw nothing below them.

"Sir! I'm so sorry, sir!" - Came a little voice, and a child, perhaps seven years old, came running up the knoll. "That's my little brother, sir! He's only three - I'm ever so sorry if he offended your lordships!"

Kaoru swung her leg over her saddle and jumped to the ground. As she did so, a little boy brandishing a stick shaped like a sword appeared in view - just as his frightened older brother tackled him.

Kaoru smiled and removed her helmet.

"Hah, is that so?" - she chuckled, striding toward the boys. "Only three? That's mighty brave of someone who's three - stopping three samurai in their tracks like that."

She squatted to the boys' level, her helmet under her arm.

"I - I'm sorry, good sir," the older one stuttered. "M-my little brother wants to be a samurai - he's so little he doesn't know there's no way that can happen…"

Kaoru eyed the boys. Both were dressed rather poorly - their tunics showing evidence of many mendings and not a drop of dye, their skin far too burnt for anyone but farmer stock.

"He wants to be a samurai?"

The younger boy was peering with some fascination at Kaoru's helmet, which had flares in the back that looked like horns.

The older boy hung his head.

"Alright, well," Kaoru said, turning to the small boy and trying to catch his eyes. "You do know that if you want to be a samurai you have to work really, really hard? What's your name, Master Aspiring Samurai?"

The boy remained transfixed by the helmet - but that, Kaoru decided, was to be expected.

"What's your name?"

"M-makoto. His name is Makoto" - the older boy answered.

"I see." Kaoru smiled wider as she examined the boy's face - from his ski-jump nose to his pointy chin and little eyes, the corners like wings ready to fly.

"And do you want to become a samurai alot-alot, Makoto? Would you do ANYTHING for it?"

The smaller boy broke eye contact with the helmet and nodded his head - vigorously.

"Alright then." Kaoru put down the helmet and reached under her front pad of armor, breathing in to make room for her hand. "See, here's the thing, Makoto" - she lowered her voice, extracting a milky-jade Netsuke** and untying the braided rope that held it in place. The jade carrying-case was a family heirloom, and shaped like a fox-head - one of several that Kaoru and Hikaru inherited from their grandmother. Inside, Kaoru liked to carry dried wisteria blooms - for the fragrance, and to ward away the bad spirits. "Today is your lucky day - and I'm not really a samurai. I'm a Fox Spirit - a good fox spirit, one of the ones that serve the god Inari - and I am hundreds of years old." The knot came undone and she pulled the rope from the holes. Being silken, it slipped out easily. "I walk among humans in human form, but once in a while, I grant people their wishes."

(*Netsuke were the feudal era prototype of a cross between purses and pockets. They were small, hollow figurines made of stone, bone, or wood, and were tied to clothes as mini carrying cases.)

She glanced at Makoto, searching his eyes for a glimmer of understanding - but they were as empty as they were transfixed, this time by the hollow figurine.

"I won't ask you to do anything in return. Just keep this, and not give it away unless the need is very, very dire. And to remember that the world is not always going to be the way you think it is. I've seen it change, and if you want to be a samurai, you can do it. There is always a way for someone determined enough."

Makoto stared at the figurine, an almost terrified look in his face.

"Take it" - Kaoru nodded, extending her hand.

The boy reached for the fox-face with shaking fingers, and glanced, for the first time on his own volition, directly into Kaoru's eyes. She smiled again.

"Keep it. Keep it all to yourself, and don't show anyone, alright? And remember what I said" - she glanced at the older boy. "You too. Don't speak of this to anyone, or else the spell won't work. If anyone asks, just say you picked it off a dead ronin, or found it on the road. And also -" She tossed her head, and a stray lock fell out from her topknot. She wrapped it around her finger and pinched the root, pulling to produce a few strands. "Here. In case you must part with the charm, here's something to remember me by."

She reached out and stroked Makoto's head. The older boy stopped just short of pulling his brother away, and Kaoru stretched her lips wider, her cheeks swelling into apples. She then pressed the lock into the smaller boy's hand and straightened up, a smile still playing on her face.

"You… said something about being bad with children, Lady Kaoru?" There was decided smirk in Kyouya's voice as she approached.

Kaoru shrugged the metal fittings on her shoulders.

"I'm alright with them for a few minutes. An hour at most. I don't know that I'd be good with them all day, every day. And besides" - she stopped a foot from her horse's head and looked up with a sardonic smirk. "Aren't you going to scold me for messing with the child's head and for encouraging him to wreck the order of the universe?"

Kyouya took a breath - the inhale markedly slower than the exhale.

"Well, you would be right. Except you don't know how much I might have paid for someone to tell to the three-year-old me the same thing. Different though our circumstances may be."

"Ah." Kaoru put her helmet back on, and placed her foot in a stirrup. "So you admit you might be wrong - that free will has its place."

"I didn't say that. I merely suggested that my beliefs, as all beliefs - and molded by the influences I've been subjected to."

"Hm. Well aren't we a slippery eel." Kaoru wrapped her reigns around her hand, patting the horse's neck. It was a lovely beast - chestnut-colored just like her, and much more obedient. "Well, how's this for an influence? If you don't know what the rules are, and if our attempts to change anything are about as futile as a shogi piece's attempts to run away, then none of it matters. All that matters is what we do. We can do anything, and the fabric of the world won't fall apart."

"That's a lovely influence, Lady Kaoru, but I'm afraid the window for such hopeful statements has passed. You may be teaching me to run, but I'm not a three-year-old under the impression that he just had a religious experience -"

"Alright." Kaoru hoisted herself up by one leg and peeked over the horse's shoulders. "Then I suppose I'll have to make up make up in intensity what I've lost in time."

She hopped back down, disappearing from view, and when she emerged under the horse's neck, Kyouya - hard of seeing though he was - noticed she wasn't wearing half her armor.

In fact, no -

His eyes HAD to be deceiving him.

"Lady Kaoru, what are you doing?! -"

Takashi had begun to scramble from his saddle, but it was already too late.

Kaoru was running pele-mele, and before Kyouya could disentangle from the stirrups and Takashi could close the gap, Kaoru had left the rest of her armor - along with her clothes - behind on the grass, and leapt full speed over the cliff.

The hill they'd ascended was not steep, but the drop was still nearly three stories. Kyouya's legs almost gave way under him, and he didn't know what force had kept him upright. He gunned it up the slope, the world a thicker blur than usual, and when he reached the top, Takashi was already there - along with the boys - both staring futilely down.

"Lady Kaoru! Are you mad?!" - Kyouya roared, his voice echoing in his ears.

He squinted, hard, into the eddies below, but everything was white. A deathly, swirling, smothering white.

And then a laugh and a voice floated up the face of rock, fresh as a summer's day.

Kaoru's voice.

"Come off it, Lord Kyouya," it called. "The water's perfect!"


	6. What No One Ever Told Kaoru

At first, when Kaoru felt something like a kick in the stomach and a light cramp, she had thought nothing of it. She had probably overdone it the day before - or eaten something that didn't agree with her. She rolled over to the side, pulling her knees up to her chest, but no sooner had she begun to drift when she felt another kick, stronger this time - though, no, this one was more of a squeeze. A hard, painful squeeze that came on sharp as a knife, and kept her stomach locked in a vice for at least a minute. She waited, breathless, for the cramp to subside, and then repositioned herself - this time flat on her stomach. It seemed to help, and she breathed in and out, letting her eyes drift slowly shut.

Except, it came again. And again. And again - each time more violently than the last, the squeezes coming so fast and hard that she had barely time to brace herself.

When the latest one subsided - having radiated to her legs - she finally managed to push herself up, only to realize that she was shivering and cold all over, and that the sheets underneath were…

Wet?

How on earth could they be wet? She didn't remember soiling herself. She reached between her legs, and quickly realized that it wasn't just the sheets - her thighs were wet, too - and so was the hair between her legs, and not just wet, but sticky and -

She pulled aside the covers and nearly fainted.

Her scream echoed out through the courtyard, and the birds outside the window scattered.

...

When Honey, Fuyumi, and half the servants came in running to see what had happened, Kaoru was still screaming for all she was worth, bug-eyed and sitting up in bed with blood dripping down her palms.

"K-Kaoru-chan, what's wrong?!"

But it took Fuyumi half a minute less than no time - along with a single whiff - to realize what was wrong.

"Mitsouko, no!" - she drew Honey forcefully back, motioning the others from the door. "She'll be fine - just, everybody stand back. O-Hisa, get clean sheets. Yukiko - hot water. Fujiko - the healer. Everyone else - go to your rooms, there's nothing to see here."

Fuyumi's voice, normally so quiet and demure, left no room for disobedience, and the women scattered, leaving only Honey peering up at her with expectant eyes. Fuyumi chewed on her lip, eyes scanning the floor.

"Mitsouko, I have a very important job for you," she said. "Go back to the common room and…. And have some honey-cakes. And if Lord Kyouya shows up, keep him busy at all costs, alright?"

"Of course, Fuyumi" - Honey nodded, turning on her heel - but not before tossing one last glance at a cowering Kaoru - who had thrown in the towel and was squirming in the sheets. Fuyumi came to kneel by the bed and reached for Kaoru's hands, peeling them away from her face. The blood was starting to congeal, and had smeared across her temple in a thin, wide streak.

"W-what is h-happening to me?" - Kaoru rasped with bloodless lips.

"Kaoru, listen to me, you're going to be fine. Did you start bleeding out of the blue?"

The girl nodded.

"And you're bleeding… from between your legs, right?"

"I - I think so, yes…"

"Alright, well, if this is what I think it is, then that's perfectly normal. It just means -"

"How… on earth… can this… be normal?"

"It just means you're ready to have children now, and to be a wife and a mother," Fuyumi replied, taking Kaoru's hands gently in hers and wiping them off with the sheet.

"A wife and a - what? H-how? That - that makes no sense… It - it feels like - like I've been stabbed…" Kaoru's voice cut abruptly short, replaced by a violent sucking in of air, and she made make a sound like a soon-to-be-slaughtered hog, doubling over in pain.

Fuyumi expelled a nervous breath.

Kaoru… was a samurai, wasn't she? And a samurai was trained to handle pain. Fuyumi had certainly heard of month blood hurting, but from the looks of it, the girl was either so frightened that it killed any zen stone dead, or this was no ordinary level of suffering. Only one person Fuyumi had ever known had hurt this badly, and it was a woman of the Shido house for whom pain potions not to worked.

Kaoru's brow was covered in sweat, and she uttered another strangled squeak, her entire body tensing.

"Oh… Oh, dear. It hurts that bad, does it?"

"It - it hurts worse than anything I've ever felt."

"Oh. Oh, my. I'm so sorry, sweetheart." Fuyumi squeezed the girl's hands - which were growing cold. "Just… Just hold on a bit. I know for a fact that some people hurt a lot when this happens, and no one's sure why, but I had Fujiko get a healer, and they should be back soon. Just - just try to breathe. I can't believe no one ever talked to you about this."

Fuyumi shook her head, realizing she had been talking herself in circles. The smell of blood - the fuller, thicker blood of month blood - began to fill the room, and a new wave came in time with another spasm from Kaoru. This time, the girl didn't make a sound, and Fuyumi felt her heart break a bit. Alone, far from home, grown up among men - it could not have been easy, to suddenly be reminded of a part of her body she barely knew existed. Fuyumi looked at the sliver of neck amid the matted hair and wondered what sort of woman Kaoru's mother - the chieftainess - was, and if she was one at all.

A storm had passed some hours prior and was still clinging to the leaves, the wind scattering a pitter-patter of second-hand raindrops every time it passed. Kaoru was breathing sporadically, bent nearly in thirds with her head on her forearms.

"I'm sorry," Fuyumi whispered, stroking the girl's head. "I know. It makes no sense at all. But that's just how life works sometimes."

…

The linens arrived, and so did the hot water and healer. Fujiko had astutely picked a woman - one who was no-nonsense, with a rock-hewn face that was somehow kind. She began setting up her vials and pins, the latter wrapped in string, as the the maid got to changing Kaoru's linens.

"Month blood, is that what we have here?" - the healer murmured, moving closer to the girl and running her hands over her stomach. "And you're sure you're not with child?"

Kaoru swallowed and shook her head. "N-no, I've never touched a man in my life…"

The woman glanced down and licked her lips, her fingers flicking through the vials.

"Here" - she gestured to Fuyumi. "Steep this one, quickly."

Fuyumi obeyed, and behind the healer's back, Kaoru heard an iron kettle being poured out. Then another bout of pain sliced through her stomach, pitching her violently to the side.

Yes. White-hot pain. That's all there was. Wave after harrowing, blinding wave. Spasms that crushed her insides with a force enough to smash a bounder - and when they did let up, it was only to torture her - for they would always come back, invariably stronger and invariably without warning.

"Here, turn over on your stomach," the woman said, taking Kaoru gently by the hip. Kaoru winced as the pain licked down her thighs. "I'm going to need to pull your robe up, though - or down. But I need to get at your lower back."

Lying in a trough of pain, Kaoru hardly cared if the woman went through top or bottom. Turning to her stomach, she buried her face in the pillow, trying not to breathe as she felt her gown being pushed up. The contraption underneath was meant to catch the blood, and she was fairly sure it looked like a diaper - but even so, she barely had the strength to feel embarrassed.

"The tea might not take effect for a while," she said, her voice soft and a little husky. "But for now, this should do it."

The woman placed her hands on her back, just where the makeshift diaper ended, and pressed, pushing down on either side of her spine with the knuckle of her fourth finger.

…

Kyouya watched Mitsouko pour the tea, using her free hand to hold the sleeve - for this time she wasn't taking any chances. She tipped the kettle until it was perpendicular to the table and gave it a shake, but no tea came out.

"Well, Mitsouko," - Kyouya gave an encouraging chuckle. "That was a good effort at least. If there was any tea in there, I'm confident you would've gotten it out."

Mitsouko's entire aspect crumbled like an empty house.

"Oh, I'm - I'm sowwy Kyou-chan -" Her bottom lip trembled. "I'm never going to get good at tea ceremony, am I?"

Kyouya smiled his usual, urbane smile.

"Even the most average mind can master a complex subject with sufficient study" - he replied primly, transferring the cast-iron pot onto the heater and adding more water from a mini-vat. "Rest assured that if I can teach Lady Kaoru to play the shamisen, I can certainly teach you - and speaking of Lady Kaoru, when do you think she might be feeling sufficiently well for us to go visit her? Being ill, I'm sure she would appreciate some company, and considering there hasn't been a catching-fever alert, I doubt she would be contagious."

Honey sank in her seat, pulling her neck into her six-layered collar. Indeed, the sun had tipped over the hump of noon, and she was running out of diversions. She had even volunteered to start her lessons for the day, and pestered Kyouya to teach Usa-chan to jump - but the bunny turned out to be too plump to part ways with the ground, and Kyouya's segways were growing more blatant.

Honey quickly stuffed a bean-cake in the mouth, and then another, and pretended to chew as she raised her finger.

"Mitsouko-senpai, do you think there might be something you're not telling me?"

Mitsouko shook her head, spewing crumbs with her breath.

"So then there's no reason we shouldn't pay her a visit, is there?"

"B-but, she may be sleeping!" Honey choked down the cakes and grabbed only Kyouya's sleeve.

"Well, then we can just take a peak, and leave her some bean-cakes" - Kyouya reached gently to pry her hand away. "It would be a nice surprise, wouldn't it?"

"B-but-but-but…. What if she wakes up?! She's very touchy about being seen in a disadvantaged position - it's a samurai-thing!"

Kyouya sighed and forced an indulgent smile, for once living up to his moniker of Mother. "Well, then she's under the care of a healer, isn't that right? Maybe I'd like to speak to them, just to see that she's alright."

He gently released her wrist from his grasp, and - not quite expecting the gesture - Mitsouko lost her balance and plopped on the floor.

"Wait - Lord Kyouya," she wheezed as he began to walk away. "Lady Kaoru - she - she said she doesn't want to see anyone -"

Kyouya turned halfway round, fixing his eyes on the air between them.

"Because? -"

"Because -" Mitsouko huffed, her feet irrevocably lost in a sea of silk - "She's - She's got… She's got something horribly, HORRIBLY disfiguring - She's not fit to be seen, I swear - she's all puffed up like a toad!"

"Hah. And you've seen this yourself, Mitsouko?" - Kyouya raised an eyebrow fit for painting. "Do you SWEAR you've seen it? On your ancestors' graves?"

"Y-yes!" The little girl nodded vigorously. "DIRECTLY on my parents' graves."

"And would you stomp on them and everything - if you're lying?"

Mitsouko hesitated.

Kyouya's alabaster face softened.

"Mitsouko, if I may. I think that since I come from the family known for recruiting the best healers in the land - " He paused, another smile flickering over his lips. A gust of freshness entered the hall - for the doors, once again, had been thrown open. "I might be justified in thinking you're a little off in Lady Kaoru's diagnosis. And what I'm worried about is that she isn't just puffed up or being a samurai, but afflicted with Absconded Disease, otherwise known as Halfway-to-the-Hitachiin-Lands Sickness. And considering it's a condition that can cause a not only contagion but a massive loss of heads, I think you'd better let me explore for myself."

Kyouya licked his lips, waiting for his words to take effect. Mitsouko lay tangled in her robes and made no sound - but over the years he had learned to read the silence.

"After all," he added with a cock of the head, "It's always better to have ammunition, isn't it? The more one knows…"

He shrugged, turning on his heel, but was arrested by a hand on his leg.

"Mitsouko?"

Sure enough, the little girl had gripped his ankles with enviable force, and Kyouya did not need to see to read the probable expression on her face.

"Alright, Mitsouko" - he sighed. "I suppose you leave me no choice. We'll just have to do this the hard way."

…

Kaoru's fingers were balled into the pillow, but her breaths had become steadier. She was still afraid to move, afraid that the pain would come back - but a remote corner of her brain had begun to trust the relief.

The healer put a hand on her shoulder.

"Are you alright?" she asked. She was a thickish woman all over, and even her voice was thick, but not in an unpleasant way. "I'm sorry this was so sudden for you. It's not an easy thing to get used to as it is, and to have had no warning -"

"G-get used to it? Y-you mean -"

"Well, this does happen every month, unless you're -"

"Every? -"

"That's why they call it our month blood. But with any luck, it won't feel as bad in the future. There are definitely things we can try -"

"EVERY MONTH?!" - Kaoru's voice broke into her pillow.

"Yes." The woman drew a small sigh, gathering her vials and and retying the knot that turned her handkerchief into a compact purse. "But like I said -"

"Oh, gods -" Kaoru moaned, squeezing her pillow over her ears. "I don't think I can do this."

Indeed, now her mind was no longer crazed from pain, she could recall that women liked to talk, in hushed voices, of "having one's blood." Both having one's blood and not having it seemed to be of consequence - but at home she only came to the women's wing to sleep, and never asked anyone about it.

"There are many things that we, even as healers, don't understand," the woman replied, replacing her hand on Kaoru's shoulder. Outside, the clouds had begun to clear, and a weak, somnolent light was making its way through the branches. "It seems this is the sacrifice that you, a woman have to make for your future children. Men bleed in battle, and women, it seems, bleed like this."

Kaoru slid her arms under the pillow, hugging it tighter against her face. She had been wounded in battle before - shot in the arm with an arrow. Oddly enough, it hadn't hurt, and when she pulled it out she was able to keep going. The pain did come on eventually - along with a river of blood - but it hadn't hurt nearly that badly.

But more than that, Kaoru did not feel like a woman. Only her brother had looked at her, at times, like she was one - and Lord Kyouya didn't count, so it stood to reason that she had bled her quota on the battle field. But no. It didn't seem to matter what one did. It all came back to cold, hard flesh and was so unfair she could vomit.

…

Kyouya was true to his word. Mitsouko on his heels notwithstanding, he had managed to make it, by fits and starts, across the common room, then down two hallways, and up a flight of stairs. When they finally arrived at Kaoru's door - Mitsouko making every effort to latch onto objects animate and inanimate - the hallway was quiet, and a maid was keeping watch outside the room, speaking in hushed voices with a healer. The latter wore brown robes, and seemed to fade into darkness.

Kyouya bowed low to both women, betraying no awareness of the girl on his heels.

"Good afternoon, ladies. I came to see how is Lady Kaoru faring."

"She's resting now," replied the woman clad in brown, with a bow in return. "I gave her something fairly strong, and she should be right as rain in the next few days."

"Oh, well, that's good to know. Would it be alright if I take a peek inside?"

"I'll check" - the woman replied stolidly. "I'm sure it will be alright - but" - she shrugged - "She's a lady, you know."

Kyouya thought it wise not to comment and gave another bow. The woman slid aside the door and disappeared.

Truthfully, Kyouya didn't really think that Kaoru had run away. If she had, there weren't enough Honey-cakes in the world to bribe Mitsouko into inaction. And yet he still wanted to know, to see with his own eyes, if only because the common room had been far too quiet.

"It's alright" - the healer poked her head out, her face a dark swatch against the light. "Go on in. But don't be long, she's still fairly weak."

Kyouya looked down at Mitsouko, forming his face into what he felt was a passable "I told you so" look. The girl loosened her grip, and while he could not tell if she was disappointed or just a bit affronted, it did not matter. He rolled back his shoulders as was his custom, and stepped carefully across the threshold.

"Lady Kaoru," he whispered breathlessly, poking his head around the door. "Are you alright?" The lights were low, and a thick screen was pinned over the window, but Kaoru's face was still visible - a shade whiter than the pillow.

"I SAID, I don't want to be seen this way" - she replied, but this time her voice did not have an edge of steel in it, but - dare he think it? - a chuckle.

"Ah, but my lady." Kyouya replied - feeling something move in his chest. "You know I CAN'T see you. Anything more than an arm's length away turns into shadow for me, so if I sit far enough away, you don't need to worry."

Kaoru made no reply, and he approached on the balls of his feet, taking a seat by the bed. Certainly, she looked alright, if a little pale - so asking how she felt was probably silly. More than that, he couldn't expect straight answer - for it was the custom, in their circles, to always put on a good face.

But what else was there? His alleged hope that she get better? No, that was useless; he needed something else. Something that wasn't superfluous, that didn't come from a book of phrases that every courtier knew.

Kaoru lay still, breathing steadily, as if bracing for a blow. Outside, the last of the rain had dribbled from the leaves, and Kaoru's arms lay draped over the blanket. One of her hands was balled into a fist - and before Kyouya knew it, he had reached for the fisted hand, and took it in his.


	7. The Tea-Haired Barbarians Pay a Visit

"Really, Lord Kyouya, you don't need to be doting on me like this… It's embarrassing."

Two days had passed, and Kaoru was not walking yet, but certainly raring to do so. Her pain had subsided to little more than an ache, and though she insisted that she had handled worse before, the healers thought it best that she remain in bed, and so the Ootoris took up visiting her religiously.

"And you certainly don't need to be feeding me, my goodness. I swear, you'd think I was a child!"

From where he sat, the youngest Ootori could not see her expression, but from the sound of things it ended in a point -- and so he folded up his lips into an indulgent smile.

When he'd begun to lose his vision, he'd barely learned to make expressions -- let alone make sense of them. But then again, that bizarre stretching of the lips that was a smile had always had a good effect on women.

"Nonsense, Milady," he replied, nonchalant as ever as he plucked up a piece of mackerel. "You were complaining of nausea earlier today, but if you don't eat, you cannot take in all the foods that the healers say you require."

He stretched out his hand, toward the place where he thought her mouth would be. A slight fuzz of sun had drawn an aureole around her head, and she had moved to sit up, her knees pulled tight against her chest.

"Well, alright. I guess it's nice to be a child -- for once." 

She shifted her hips forward, a hand's breadth towards the place where Kyouya sat, and with a rustle of futon-covers leaned her torso forward. She took the fish between her teeth, and pushed it to the back of her mouth with barely a taste.

"We all have our burdens, alas."

"Mhm. And I suppose yours is taking care of me." 

The fish had slid down her throat with relative ease, but not without consequence. It smelled dreadfully of river-water, and she flexed her mouth several times to gather saliva from its sides to wash it down.

Kyouya watched the outline of her jaw -- and when he'd satisfied himself that she had swallowed, he picked up another piece. Despite the smell of sick that hung within the room -- along with the tinny scent of blood and that of incense -- he still could smell the warmth of Kaoru's skin: the scent of grass, the rawhide and the iron that clung to her despite multiple baths. It lent a genuine quality to his smile -- for it was the scent he still remembered from their outing in the field that day: the day when she had squeezed the cruel stitch out of his ribs. 

"No, milady, you're wrong upon that point," he replied. "I care for all the ladies in this place -- I'm sure you've noticed that by now. I make them happy when the men are off at war -- and while it may not be the life I chose, it's rather satisfying -- in its own way."

"Hm." Kaoru turned away, and reached for the jug of sake. "Really, now. And how is that?"

Kyouya held out another piece of mackerel. 

"Well, this is how I see it. A lady's world is very small: home, children, offerings to the gods -- that's really about the extent of it. They love to get a chance to find some beauty in the everyday, and to hear of faraway places they may never get the chance to visit. But men don't have the patience, really, to share it all with them, so that's where I come in. I may not have the first-hand knowledge, but --"

But Kaoru had stopped listening, it seemed, and Kyouya stopped -- for even though he had broken eyes he still could sense that she had turned away. He sighed, and put the fish back on its tray, picking up a piece of lotus root instead.

"I'm sorry. That was tactless." 

"No need, there's nothing to be sorry for."

Kyouya drew another breath, and held out the lotus root.

"Well, be that as it may, I've always wanted to meet you. You aren't just one of many ladies: I heard the story of your birth, a long time ago, and thought at first that you were just a legend."

Kaoru gave a chuckle and reached -- with far more eagerness -- towards the root.

"My birth? Heh. And what exactly did you hear?"

Kyouya squinted at her face, and brought the offering closer to her mouth.

"I heard about it when I was 8 years old, and I admit I was jealous. I thought -- what luck to have been born at such an auspicious time, and on such an auspicious occasion."

Kaoru took the lotus root with her lips, and closed her eyes for a long moment, chomping on the rubbery cords.

"I heard that you were born in early summer," Kyouya went on, "Your mother was at war somewhere in the North. There weren't as many cities there, just steppes and mountains and woods, and yet your mother, being the willful woman that she was, insisted that she go despite having been with child. By the time she got close to term, the army was far gone, and the supply lines were stretched so thin, that there was hardly any food to eat, not to mention life-saving potions or healers. One night, your mother came back from leading a raid, and the threshold of her tent she knew it was time. There was very little for anesthetic -- just clove extract -- and no one to help the healer but a young banner-boy, who had no healer's schooling at all. They told him to stand at the head of your mother's bed, and to wait to be told to put some anesthetic on a rag, and then hold it over your mother's face."

Kyouya paused, and since Kaoru seemed to be chewing, he put down the chopsticks and focused his attention on the subject of the story.

It was getting warm again, but Kaoru suddenly seemed cold, huddling as she chewed meditatively under her blankets.

"Well, time went on, and your mother delivered into this world the child that was your brother. They were just ready to settle him down onto her breast, when suddenly there came a long string of oaths from the healer worthy of a drunken ronin at a roadside inn. It seemed there was a second child on the way, and your mother was carrying twins and didn't even know it. The banner-boy got so excited that he dumped the entire bottle of clove oil on his cloth, and your mother did not remember a thing after that -- until you were delivered."

The youngest Ootori smiled -- and Kaoru chuckled -- the piece of root safely dispatched down her throat. 

"That is a beautiful story. Sad to say, though, it isn't true"

"Oh, really?" Kyouya rocked back on his haunches. "And what, may I ask, did I get wrong? I wish to know -- for you were there and I was not, and I must defer to your judgment."

But Kaoru turned away again, and an enigmatic fell over her face that Kyouya did not see. Across the room, some flecks of light were fluttering in a corner, and she fixed her eyes on them.

"I don't know, really," she said after a moment. "I don't think it matters. It really is a pretty story, the way you told it -- so maybe it's for the best -- maybe it should stay that way."

…

Outside, the air was thick with summer heat, and gnats and horse-flies filled the ears with an incessant buzzing. Inside, though, it was cool -- the blackened, rough-cut pillars filling the nostrils with the heady smell of sap. The Ootoris were receiving a delegation of Tea-haired Barbadians, and the object of the meeting was education and trade.

Lord Kyouya took Lady Kaoru with him, for such an opportunity only presented itself once in a great while. On top of that, he knew that she would not be content whiling the morning away stitching sachiko -- and to pay him back for his trouble, she had agreed to hold his sleeve. As he took it upon himself to round on all of the tables, however, he found that the agreement had left him with more trouble than he had bargained for. 

(** a traditional Japanese type of embroidery used to embellish and strengthen a piece of cloth)

"Yes, Lady Kaoru, the Tea-haired barbarians are a very odd sort," he had explained as they had made their way to the great hall. "I've seen them only once or twice, but they eat with their hands, and voice their emotions almost before they think -- though, given the things they bring, I'd hardly be inclined to dwell upon such niceties."

And Kaoru seemed to take these words to heart, and, wide-eyed, dragged him to every booth -- for, in all fairness, it was difficult not to. The whole place had the air of a gay festival on a summer's day, and there were dozens of little tables and stands piled high with wares -- as well as laughter and voices, quite different from any she'd ever heard, that filled the air as high as the rafters and overwhelmed the senses like a torrential summer rain.

Indeed, it was all Kyouya could do to shake his head and make a tactful comment here and there about his empty account-scroll -- but there was so much waiting to be tasted and touched that even he could not protest for long. Beginning with the vat of oil that had been heated to an angry, sputtering boil and into which one of the men -- the proprietor of a massive beard -- was dipping crawfish powdered with flour** -- to lumps of crystals that were sweeter than a thousand candied figs -- and then there was the goldenwork: so fine that even Kaoru had to squint to see the tiniest details…

(**Technically, what we know today as tempura was introduced to Japan by the Portugeuse in the 1500's.)

And quite apart from the fascinating things they'd brought, the Tea-haired Barbarians were also different from the Japanese as cats were from dogs. Their faces were -- just as Kyouya had said -- an endless cycle of feelings, and when they laughed, it took Kaoru's breath away every time. For free spirit though she was, she could not see herself laughing as they did, and foisting herself on others with such wild excitement.

And then at last, Kyouya managed to spirit her away, and when he did she did not know if she ought to have been grateful. Her head reeled with excitement as she stumbled to the end of the hall, and there her eyes fell upon a cart that was just being unloaded. A few of the Ootori bannermen had gathered around, and were conversing with a fat, jolly barbarian who spoke in a booming voice and had a face full of impressive vegetation. One of the bannermen -- a brownish haired samurai dressed in green -- seemed to recognize Kyouya and waved him over.

Kaoru followed him to the group without a word, and saw the Tea-haired barbarian was holding out a slim, chestnut-colored cylinder than curved toward the end just like a sword.

"…Twenty steps -- pierce metal," the man was saying with some pride and a drawling, expansive lilt. "If skilled, take no time at all to load…"

"What… is that?"

Kaoru lost no time in edging her way to the middle.

"An arquebus, my lady," the barbarian replied, turning over the object and taking out a cloth of questionable cleanliness. "Shoots fire-metal. Very dangerous."

"How does it work?"

"It's… very complicated… my lady. I would-na trouble meself with such matters."

"Ah, well --" 

Out of the corner of her eye, Kaoru could see the brownish-heaired lad curl his lips down in a scowl, but she had been prepared. After all, she was thirteen, and no longer naive enough to that that all men accepted women like her.

"-- Show me, in that case? I want to learn. Some Japanese women can and do know how to fight."

If the Barbarian was nonplussed before, his expression seemed about to give way to frank shock -- and then she heard Kyouya's voice over her shoulder.

"Now, now, fascinating subject thought this might be" -- he said in his cool, sophisticated tone -- "But now, I think, is not the time for a demonstration. A functionality test is in order at some point, but we first need to check the numbers, and make sure have enough for our lovely neighbors as well…" 

He drew Kaoru gently aside with one hand, and she felt her limbs go loose. The hubbub of the rest of the hall suddenly swelled, and she wondered what on earth she had been thinking. The brown haired youth's disapproval faded from his face -- but then she'd been a fool to think she'd win any battles on this battlefield.

Kyouya drifted away from her side, and she only noticed once his touch was gone. She flexed her fingers once or twice, and then the brown haired youth materialized by her side.

"Your family traded you away for that crop of arquebuses, you know," he said in a flat tone. "You'd be advised to know your place and not to make a spectacle out of yourself" -- he bumped his shoulder into hers before walking on, and as he walked away, she felt a sick tightness in the bottom of her stomach.

Know your place. 

No weapons. Of course not. That was the rule, and the condition of her exile.

And "know your place" was something she had heard too, and almost learned to ignore when coming from anyone who wasn't a close mentor. She knew the way she lived her life was highly irregular -- for many women knew how to hold a spear and defend their homes, but few mingled freely with warrior-types and called themselves a "samurai…" **

(** "Samurai" is by definition a male-gendered word; there is no feminine analog, and when one references a samurai, the fact that the person in question is a male is implied.")

But still -- the fact that she had been "traded" -- like a common horse or a vial of cloth… Could it be that the young man was simply seeking to wound her? She'd thought she meant far more to her mother than that -- that although she was second, she'd always seen a little of herself in her…

Had she thought wrong?

Kaoru stood staring motionless at the ground. She bit down painfully on the inside of her cheek, and the folds of her gown felt heavier than ever.

"Lord Kyouya -- Lord Kyouya…." 

Kyouya turned where he was standing a few paces away, and lifted his hand to pause the conversation.

"Are you quite alright, Lady Kaoru? The lord Camoes offers his apologies; he would be happy to explain the workings to you at a later time --"

But Kaoru could barely hear his thoughts. Her pulse beat fast inside her ears, and the sap-drenched air was thick and cool, but it was growing harder and harder to breath.

"No, it's not that…" -- she finally managed. "It… doesn't really matter how it works…"

Kyouya raised an eyebrow -- in his interrogative yet none-too-pressing way -- and as she caught his gaze she felt, for a moment, like she was back in the opulence of the women's quarters, the sounds of the world muffled away.

It helped.

"Look -- Lord Kyouya," she tried again. "The samurai with the brown hair -- I don't know what his name is --"

"Oh -- that would be Akito; he's my brother."

"Yes… Akito. That's right. He said that part of the contract between our families was that I was to be sent here in exchange for those… those weapons -- is that true?"

"Well, technically yes -- yes it is…"

Kaoru faltered.

Such a frank answer was certainly not something she had expected.

"I am not sure of the details," Kyouya went on, "But that is a large part of it -- they are very good weapons after all, and for what it's worth even a dozen -- wait, Lady Kaoru, where are you going?!"

But Kaoru had already spun around and was walking away, much faster than the folds of her dress might have allowed her. Her arms swung like a soldier's at her sides, and the Ootori only managed to catch up to her halfway up the food aisle.

"Kaoru!" -- he caught her sleeve and pulled violently backward. "I thought we had agreed -- you were to stay within sight --"

It came out more indignant than he'd intended -- in fact, even he was surprised by his own strength. But for what it was worth, Kaoru did stop short, and fixed her eyes doggedly on the floorboards.

"I don't feel well," she said in a dead voice, as if she had been expecting this very thing, and had not been running away at all. "Just let me go. Please."

"You don't feel well?"

"No, I don't."

"Well, then you should go back to the women's quarters -- here, if you just wait a moment, I will take you --"

But Kaoru fixed her eyes even more doggedly on the flood and shook her head.

"No, I don't think you should do that."

"No? And what makes you say that?"

A silence followed, and Kyouya heard Kaoru's breath seethe underneath her chest. He cocked his had slightly to the side.

"No -- look -- I'll just stay… here. I'll just walk around here..."

Kyouya slackened his grip.

When she put it that way, there was little he could do. For better or for worse, he was beginning to empathize with Lady Kaoru. If he were tethered in the same way, a hostage in everything but name -- well, never mind, he was tethered as it was, simply by virtue of the status quo, but that was quite another matter.

In any case -- she had no weapons; her realistic chances of escaping were vanishingly slim. Even if she did what she had done at the river, she'd never make it past the palage gates.

He let her sleeve go.

"Alright, Lady Kaoru. Go if you insist. I hope you feel better" -- he added in a soft voice.

He watched her back recede into the shadows, and as he did, he did not need to imagine the exact nature -- down to the syllable -- or her conversation with Akito.

…

Kaoru walked past the stalls, and the objects that had warmed to her before no longer cheered her. The giddy hubbub of the place had turned into a dull roar, and all she felt was a deep and endless emptiness.

Traded.

She felt the doors closing in on her heart, her mother and brother's faces fading far away. She tried to imagine them, but could not remember.

She knew she had to endure -- to not make a spectacle of herself and to know her place. That's what true samurai did -- endure, and yet… had it really been all a game? Had they been letting her play warrior this whole time, and planning to cut her loose as soon as the opportunity presented itself?

The guns were useful, on that point there could be no doubt. If they could really shoot through metal they were worth their weight in gold -- and yet… 

How foolish she had been. She knew that every person had their price, and in the eyes of the world, it seemed that hers was not quite what she thought it had been.

Suddenly, she felt her cheeks burn bright red. It felt like everyone in the room could see her mind, and everyone in the room was laughing at her. Beginning with the goat-faced tradesman behind a stand of cloth and ending with the two men behind a rack of breastplates… They all could see how much she had presumed, how silly she had been…

She wanted to weep, to bury herself alive -- if only it meant silencing those feelings -- for silence -- silence, that was the last refuge of the unhappy; without it, ill-wishers would settle on her troubles like vultures on a corpse. 

Her hands felt bound, dragged down by the heavy folds of cloth, and dark shapes began to crawl from underneath the rafters. 

"My lady!"

The roaring of the hall grew momentarily louder, and then it felt to Kaoru like she was walking in a dream.

"My lady! Yes, yes, you! You look like you are lost -- come here, I want to show you something."

The voice was coming from behind her and as she turned to look, but her legs felt mired in boggy swamp-water. 

The voice belonged to a curious old man sitting behind a stall she had somehow missed in her sojourns earlier. His stall was covered in small, brick-like objects, and with his hunched back, he was barely visible behind them. 

She eyed the man curiously -- along with his wares -- suddenly eager to escape her thoughts.

"My lady, I can see something's troubling you," the man ventured haltingly, though in passable Japanese. "If I may, I'd like to be of assistance, if I can."

The man's eyes were a clear blue, like water in a stream, and Kaoru studied them for an instant, trying to see what more there was behind them.

"No, I'm sorry, sir," she replied. "I think you are mistaken. There's nothing you can do that's going to help me."

The man wrinkled his forehead, though not -- as it appeared-- in admonition. 

"Well, no, perhaps not -- but have you heard the story of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?"

"Our Lord and Savior Je--" Kaoru stopped her tongue before it had had a chance to stumble over the words and butcher them completely. "No… No, I don't think I have."

"Oh, well then…"

The man reached for one of the blocks, and carefully wet the pads of his fingers before proceeding. The block turned out to be a collection of parchment-pieces pressed together and bound at one end. He seemed to find the right place by touch, but before proceeding to interrogate the words, he reached into a fold of his robe and extracted two round, wire-rimmed objects -- attached together in the middle and which he placed over the bridge of his nose.

The object glinted in the half-light of the hall, and Kaoru realized it wasn't just wires: it was two pieces of something clear, from behind which the man's eyelids winked and blinked.

The man squinted at the page.

"Ah, here it is --"

"Er, sir, what's that that you've got on your face?"

The man paused, and looked up at Kaoru with a wry smile.

"Oh, these? These are called spectacles. They help me see."

"You cannot see?"

The man smiled, and for one reason or another Kaoru thought he looked like a very pleasant, very contented bird. 

"I cannot see close, so I use my spectacles to read. Why -- do you know someone who cannot see?"

Kaoru nodded -- so quickly she thought she nearly something.

"Oh, well, then." The man gave another smile. "Maybe we can help them out as well. Are the middles of your friend's eyes black or white?"

"Black."

"Well, then there's hope."

He reached below the table, and extracted a lacquered box, holding it by the sides like it contained a life's worth of precious gems. He placed it carefully on the table, and smoothed his fingers over the surface.

"I have a few spectacles right here, so if your friend does not mind --"

But Kaoru had already turned tail -- forgetting even the reflexive bow, and was running down the hall. She ran faster than the day they'd first broken the rules and escaped into the archery field.

…

"Lord Kyouya! Lord Kyouya!" 

Her hallooing turned a number of heads long before she'd reached the place where he was standing, but this time she did not care. How funny it was that in the space of a few minutes, the world could change not once but several dozen.

Kyouya turned around -- the weapons already unloaded -- and Kaoru seized him by the shoulders.

"Lady Kaoru? I'm a bit --" 

Occupied at the moment? No, that was no good. The word "occupied" was not one Kaoru was likely to understand -- not in the state she was in when she moved the air around her like that. It seemed she had flown from across the hall like one might have flown across the world -- to give news that Amaterasu had come down from the heavens and that the world had ended all at once.

In fact, he had long accepted the fact that Lady Kaoru never took it lightly when someone pooh-poohed her convictions. As such, he hid his annoyance away -- behind the zen-like mask that was so easy to maintain when there were few external distractions.

"Yes, Lady Kaoru, what is it?"

"You must come!" -- she cried, giving his shoulders a shake. "I can't explain -- you just have to see --"

Kyouya scratched his head, indelicately, with his pen, and folded up his parchment, waving the man he had been talking to away.

"My dear Lady Kaoru… Look, is there any way that this can wait? I'm nearly finished here --"

"No, no --" she tugged him vigorously by his sleeve -- "You have to come now --" Somehow -- although it was not logical -- she could not shake the feeling that if she didn't get back post-haste, the funny man with his curious shop would disappear -- or else turn out to never haver existed altogether.

Kyouya smoothed his hair back from his brow, and pressed his bamboo pen between his eyes. A headache was hatching between his eyebrows. Still -- from what he had seen to that day, Kaoru was truy a samurai in that a she was never out of control -- indeed, even her stint in jumping off the cliff was perfectly orchestrated. But then there was something different about the curious lady that day. Something barely tangible, something in the way she moved that gave him pause and made him wonder.

He decided there was no use in fighting it, and shook his head -- that much he felt an obligation to do -- and acquiesced in stumbling after her, nearly tripping over his robe. Half-heartedly, he thought they must have looked like children or lovers… But then again, those present were mostly Barbarians -- so in that regard, the display felt not at all out of place...

Kaoru pulled him across the hall -- past the man who was now frying squid and octopus -- past the stall with the golden baubles, past the meltaway sweetness worth its weight in gold -- 

"This -- this is my friend" -- Kaoru huffed -- suddenly stopping short and pulling Kyouya to a stop so hard he nearly tripped again. "The one who can't see… Here --"

He gave him a nudge in between the shoulder blades.

"Kaoru, what on earth?"

I really don't think I can stand any more empty promises --

"This… man…" -- Kaoru heaved, barely able to get the words out over her breaths -- "He -- says -- he's got -- things -- to help you see…"

Kyouya instinctively raised his hand to his eyes. He did not want to look, truth be told...

He had not told Kaoru this, but he had not lost his vision at all suddenly. There had been poultices, prayers, and all manner of mystic fixes that people had sworn up and down would reverse the process -- and even a samurai technique where one would train by looking at night at the stars. But still, his eyesight had dwindled away day by day, until a leaden fatigue had set in, and he did not even want -- did not even remember….

"You can not see, young man?"

"Er -- No… sir, I can not" -- Kyouya replied on autopilot.

"And your friend says -- you cannot see far?"

"That is exactly right."

"How far can you see?"

Kyouya paused and reflected for a moment.

"I suppose I can read books," he said. "I can see the end of my stretched-out hand if I really try -- but any farther than that… I'm hopeless."

The man opened up his chest.

"Here, try this one. And here, this one is for you --" he handed Kaoru a piece of clear material as well, this one without a rim. "It helps you see things closer."

Kyouya took the thing he had been handed in his hands, and turned it this way and that. The thing looked like an odd sort of mask -- minimalistic and fragile, and he felt hardness where there was nothing to see.

"Like this." The man got up from his spot, and hobbled over to Kyouya, positioning the wire ends correctly in his hands. He then put his hands over Kyouya's own and brought the spectacles to his face -- the boy instinctively closing his eyes as he always did whenever somebody did so.

He felt the cool wires settle between his ears.

"Open your eyes -- tell me what you think."

For a long moment, Kyouya wondered whether to obey, and when he did --

For the longest time, Kyouya had not remembered what "clear" had looked like. He'd grown so accustomed to seeing shadows -- to the way things smelled, and felt, and moved, that he had almost forgotten vision. The images he did remember he kept stored away, and visited them but rarely.

He never dreamed it could so suddenly come back. Never thought it was more than a pipe dream. 

And yet, there they suddenly were -- faces, near and far, with eyes and ears and lips tongues -- all things he had known only theoretically, painted in his mind's eye, but had no substance in practice. And banners -- sharp as razor-blades with words that had been seared along their lengths, billowing and cutting across the ceiling. The whole thing made his body reel: the things that had once breathed life in only vague, disjointed ways had suddenly became edges that burned themselves into his consciousness -- as if a a thick veil had been ripped asunder.

His knees buckled a little, and he tried to seek something to grab hold of -- but the man who had placed the spectacles on his face had stepped aside, and then his gaze fell on Kaoru. 

Kaoru had looked up -- starting a little, for she had been peering through the glass the man had given her and apparently missed the whole thing.

Like all things, Kaoru had been a phantom until then. The occasional apparition, when she would lean in close to him or seize him as she was unceremoniously wont to do -- a hand, a fleeting face. All he had known of her were her eyes, her skin, her hair -- he had relied instinctively on his other senses when it came to knowing her, and had not minded...

Of course, it had been getting to a point where he would always feel a strange longing when she stepped away -- a melancholy at the impermanence of all things, he had supposed…

And then he saw her. Kaoru in her entirety.

Straight-backed and queenly, she was more slender that he had supposed. Tall, certainly -- but her heavy sleeves were pulling her to the ground, and the patterns upon them were of gold filigree, her red shock of hair rounding out the image like a tall candle on a sacrificial altar.

Her eyes were still gold, and when they met his, he knew that she knew. Her elbows buckled a little, and a hot wave of hot consciousness washed over her cheeks -- only to give way to a beam of restlessness that then washed over her shoulders, arms -- even her breast. Her hands quivering, she placed her piece of glass upon the table, and took a step toward him, and as she did so, she stretched out her arms.


End file.
